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diff --git a/44035-tei/44035-tei.tei b/44035-tei/44035-tei.tei new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79d151e --- /dev/null +++ b/44035-tei/44035-tei.tei @@ -0,0 +1,30847 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> + +<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd" [ + +<!ENTITY u5 "http://www.tei-c.org/Lite/"> + +]> + +<TEI.2 lang="en"> +<teiHeader> + <fileDesc> + <titleStmt> + <title>Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)</title> + <title type="sub">The Doctrine of God</title> + <author><name reg="Strong, Augustus Hopkins">Augustus Hopkins Strong</name></author> + </titleStmt> + <editionStmt> + <edition n="1">Edition 1</edition> + </editionStmt> + <publicationStmt> + <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher> + <date>October 25, 2013</date> + <idno type="etext-no">44035</idno> + <availability> + <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and + with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it + away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg + License online at www.gutenberg.org/license</p> + </availability> + </publicationStmt> + <sourceDesc> + <bibl> + Created electronically. + </bibl> + </sourceDesc> + </fileDesc> + <encodingDesc> + </encodingDesc> + <profileDesc> + <langUsage> + <language id="en"></language> + <language id="la"></language> + <language id="de"></language> + <language id="fr"></language> + <language id="el"></language> + <language id="he"></language> + <language id="zh"></language> + <language id="ar"></language> + <language id="sa"></language> + </langUsage> + </profileDesc> + <revisionDesc> + <change> + <date value="2013-10-25">October 25, 2013</date> + <respStmt> + <name> + Produced by Colin Bell, CCEL, David King, and the Online + Distributed Proofreading Team at <http://www.pgdp.net/>. + </name> + </respStmt> + <item>Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</item> + </change> + </revisionDesc> +</teiHeader> + +<pgExtensions> + <pgStyleSheet> + .boxed { x-class: boxed } + .shaded { x-class: shaded } + .rules { x-class: rules; rules: all } + .indent { margin-left: 2 } + .bold { font-weight: bold } + .italic { font-style: italic } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + </pgStyleSheet> + + <pgCharMap formats="txt.iso-8859-1"> + <char id="U0x2014"> + <charName>mdash</charName> + <desc>EM DASH</desc> + <mapping>--</mapping> + </char> + <char id="U0x2003"> + <charName>emsp</charName> + <desc>EM SPACE</desc> + <mapping> </mapping> + </char> + <char id="U0x2026"> + <charName>hellip</charName> + <desc>HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS</desc> + <mapping>...</mapping> + </char> + </pgCharMap> +</pgExtensions> + +<text lang="en"> + <front> + <div> + <divGen type="pgheader" /> + </div> + <div> + <divGen type="encodingDesc" /> + </div> + + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> + <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">Systematic Theology</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">A Compendium and Commonplace-Book</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Designed For The Use Of Theological Students</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">By</p> + <p rend="font-size: x-large; text-align: center">Augustus Hopkins Strong, D.D., LL.D.</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">President and Professor of Biblical Theology in the Rochester Theological Seminary</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Revised and Enlarged</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">In Three Volumes</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Volume 1</p> + <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">The Doctrine of God</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">The Judson Press</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Seattle, Toronto</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">1907</p> + </div> + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> + <head>Contents</head> + <divGen type="toc" /> + </div> + + </front> +<body> + +<div> +<p rend='text-align: center'> +<figure url='images/cover.jpg' rend='width: 40%'> +<figDesc>Cover Art</figDesc> +</figure> +</p> +<p> +[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at +Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] +</p> +</div> + +<pb n='v'/><anchor id='Pgv'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> + +<p> +Christo Deo Salvatori. +</p> + +<p> +<q><hi rend='smallcaps'>The eye sees only that which it brings with it the power +of seeing.</hi></q>—<hi rend='italic'>Cicero.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +<q><hi rend='smallcaps'>Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things +out of thy law.</hi></q>—<hi rend='italic'>Psalm 119:18.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +<q><hi rend='smallcaps'>For with thee is the fountain of life: In thy light shall +we see light.</hi></q>—<hi rend='italic'>Psalm 36:9.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +<q><hi rend='smallcaps'>For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when +that which is perfect is come, that which is in part +shall be done away.</hi></q>—<hi rend='italic'>1 Cor. 13:9, 10.</hi> +</p> + +</div> + +<pb n='vii'/><anchor id='Pgvii'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Preface</head> + +<p> +The present work is a revision and enlargement of my +<q>Systematic Theology,</q> first published in 1886. Of the original +work there have been printed seven editions, each edition embodying +successive corrections and supposed improvements. During +the twenty years which have intervened since its first publication +I have accumulated much new material, which I now offer to the +reader. My philosophical and critical point of view meantime has +also somewhat changed. While I still hold to the old doctrines, I +interpret them differently and expound them more clearly, because +I seem to myself to have reached a fundamental truth which +throws new light upon them all. This truth I have tried to set +forth in my book entitled <q>Christ in Creation,</q> and to that book +I refer the reader for further information. +</p> + +<p> +That Christ is the one and only Revealer of God, in nature, in +humanity, in history, in science, in Scripture, is in my judgment +the key to theology. This view implies a monistic and idealistic +conception of the world, together with an evolutionary idea as to +its origin and progress. But it is the very antidote to pantheism, +in that it recognizes evolution as only the method of the transcendent +and personal Christ, who fills all in all, and who makes the +universe teleological and moral from its centre to its circumference +and from its beginning until now. +</p> + +<p> +Neither evolution nor the higher criticism has any terrors to one +who regards them as parts of Christ's creating and educating process. +The Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge himself furnishes all the needed safeguards and limitations. +It is only because Christ has been forgotten that nature and +<pb n='viii'/><anchor id='Pgviii'/> +law have been personified, that history has been regarded as unpurposed +development, that Judaism has been referred to a merely +human origin, that Paul has been thought to have switched the +church off from its proper track even before it had gotten fairly +started on its course, that superstition and illusion have come to +seem the only foundation for the sacrifices of the martyrs and the +triumphs of modern missions. I believe in no such irrational and +atheistic evolution as this. I believe rather in him in whom all +things consist, who is with his people even to the end of the world, +and who has promised to lead them into all the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Philosophy and science are good servants of Christ, but they are +poor guides when they rule out the Son of God. As I reach my +seventieth year and write these words on my birthday, I am thankful +for that personal experience of union with Christ which has +enabled me to see in science and philosophy the teaching of my +Lord. But this same personal experience has made me even more +alive to Christ's teaching in Scripture, has made me recognize in +Paul and John a truth profounder than that disclosed by any +secular writers, truth with regard to sin and atonement for sin, +that satisfies the deepest wants of my nature and that is self-evidencing +and divine. +</p> + +<p> +I am distressed by some common theological tendencies of our +time, because I believe them to be false to both science and +religion. How men who have ever felt themselves to be lost sinners +and who have once received pardon from their crucified Lord +and Savior can thereafter seek to pare down his attributes, deny +his deity and atonement, tear from his brow the crown of miracle +and sovereignty, relegate him to the place of a merely moral teacher +who influences us only as does Socrates by words spoken across a +stretch of ages, passes my comprehension. Here is my test of +orthodoxy: Do we pray to Jesus? Do we call upon the name of +Christ, as did Stephen and all the early church? Is he our living +<pb n='ix'/><anchor id='Pgix'/> +Lord, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent? Is he divine only +in the sense in which we are divine, or is he the only-begotten Son, +God manifest in the flesh, in whom is all the fulness of the +Godhead bodily? What think ye of the Christ? is still the critical +question, and none are entitled to the name of Christian who, in the +face of the evidence he has furnished us, cannot answer the question +aright. +</p> + +<p> +Under the influence of Ritschl and his Kantian relativism, many +of our teachers and preachers have swung off into a practical denial +of Christ's deity and of his atonement. We seem upon the verge +of a second Unitarian defection, that will break up churches and +compel secessions, in a worse manner than did that of Channing +and Ware a century ago. American Christianity recovered from +that disaster only by vigorously asserting the authority of Christ +and the inspiration of the Scriptures. We need a new vision of +the Savior like that which Paul saw on the way to Damascus and +John saw on the isle of Patmos, to convince us that Jesus is lifted +above space and time, that his existence antedated creation, that he +conducted the march of Hebrew history, that he was born of a +virgin, suffered on the cross, rose from the dead, and now lives +forevermore, the Lord of the universe, the only God with whom we +have to do, our Savior here and our Judge hereafter. Without a +revival of this faith our churches will become secularized, mission +enterprise will die out, and the candlestick will be removed out of +its place as it was with the seven churches of Asia, and as it has +been with the apostate churches of New England. +</p> + +<p> +I print this revised and enlarged edition of my <q>Systematic +Theology,</q> in the hope that its publication may do something to +stem this fast advancing tide, and to confirm the faith of God's +elect. I make no doubt that the vast majority of Christians still +hold the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, and that +they will sooner or later separate themselves from those who deny +<pb n='x'/><anchor id='Pgx'/> +the Lord who bought them. When the enemy comes in like a +flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him. +I would do my part in raising up such a standard. I would lead +others to avow anew, as I do now, in spite of the supercilious +assumptions of modern infidelity, my firm belief, only confirmed +by the experience and reflection of a half-century, in the old +doctrines of holiness as the fundamental attribute of God, of an +original transgression and sin of the whole human race, in a divine +preparation in Hebrew history for man's redemption, in the deity, +preëxistence, virgin birth, vicarious atonement and bodily resurrection +of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in his future coming to judge +the quick and the dead. I believe that these are truths of science +as well as truths of revelation; that the supernatural will yet be +seen to be most truly natural; and that not the open-minded theologian +but the narrow-minded scientist will be obliged to hide his +head at Christ's coming. +</p> + +<p> +The present volume, in its treatment of Ethical Monism, Inspiration, +the Attributes of God, and the Trinity, contains an antidote +to most of the false doctrine which now threatens the safety of the +church. I desire especially to call attention to the section on +Perfection, and the Attributes therein involved, because I believe +that the recent merging of Holiness in Love, and the practical +denial that Righteousness is fundamental in God's nature, are +responsible for the utilitarian views of law and the superficial views +of sin which now prevail in some systems of theology. There can +be no proper doctrine of the atonement and no proper doctrine of +retribution, so long as Holiness is refused its preëminence. Love +must have a norm or standard, and this norm or standard can be +found only in Holiness. The old conviction of sin and the sense of +guilt that drove the convicted sinner to the cross are inseparable +from a firm belief in the self-affirming attribute of God as logically +prior to and as conditioning the self-communicating attribute. The +<pb n='xi'/><anchor id='Pgxi'/> +theology of our day needs a new view of the Righteous One. Such +a view will make it plain that God must be reconciled before man +can be saved, and that the human conscience can be pacified only +upon condition that propitiation is made to the divine Righteousness. +In this volume I propound what I regard as the true Doctrine +of God, because upon it will be based all that follows in the +volumes on the Doctrine of Man, and the Doctrine of Salvation. +</p> + +<p> +The universal presence of Christ, the Light that lighteth every +man, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, to direct or overrule +all movements of the human mind, gives me confidence that the +recent attacks upon the Christian faith will fail of their purpose. +It becomes evident at last that not only the outworks are assaulted, +but the very citadel itself. We are asked to give up all belief in +special revelation. Jesus Christ, it is said, has come in the flesh +precisely as each one of us has come, and he was before Abraham +only in the same sense that we were. Christian experience knows +how to characterize such doctrine so soon as it is clearly stated. +And the new theology will be of use in enabling even ordinary +believers to recognize soul-destroying heresy even under the mask +of professed orthodoxy. +</p> + +<p> +I make no apology for the homiletical element in my book. To +be either true or useful, theology must be a passion. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Pectus est +quod theologum facit</foreign>, and no disdainful cries of <q>Pectoral +Theology!</q> shall prevent me from maintaining that the eyes of the +heart must be enlightened in order to perceive the truth of God, +and that to know the truth it is needful to do the truth. Theology +is a science which can be successfully cultivated only in connection +with its practical application. I would therefore, in every discussion +of its principles, point out its relations to Christian experience, +and its power to awaken Christian emotions and lead to Christian +decisions. Abstract theology is not really scientific. Only that +theology is scientific which brings the student to the feet of Christ. +</p> + +<pb n='xii'/><anchor id='Pgxii'/> + +<p> +I would hasten the day when in the name of Jesus every knee shall +bow. I believe that, if any man serve Christ, him the Father will +honor, and that to serve Christ means to honor him as I honor the +Father. I would not pride myself that I believe so little, but +rather that I believe so much. Faith is God's measure of a man. +Why should I doubt that God spoke to the fathers through the +prophets? Why should I think it incredible that God should raise +the dead? The things that are impossible with men are possible +with God. When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the +earth? Let him at least find faith in us who profess to be his +followers. In the conviction that the present darkness is but +temporary and that it will be banished by a glorious sunrising, I +give this new edition of my <q>Theology</q> to the public with the +prayer that whatever of good seed is in it may bring forth fruit, +and that whatever plant the heavenly Father has not planted may +be rooted up. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='smallcaps'>Rochester Theological Seminary,<lb/> +Rochester, N. Y., August 3, 1906.</hi> +</p> + +</div> + +<pb n='001'/><anchor id='Pg001'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Part I. Prolegomena.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter I. Idea Of Theology.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Definition of Theology.</head> + +<p> +Theology is the science of God and of the relations +between God and the universe. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Though the word <q>theology</q> is sometimes employed in dogmatic writings to +designate that single department of the science which treats of the divine nature and +attributes, prevailing usage, since Abelard (A. D. 1079-1142) entitled his general treatise +<q>Theologia Christiana,</q> has included under that term the whole range of Christian +doctrine. Theology, therefore, gives account, not only of God, but of those relations +between God and the universe in view of which we speak of Creation, Providence and +Redemption. +</p> + +<p> +John the Evangelist is called by the Fathers <q>the theologian,</q> because he most fully +treats of the internal relations of the persons of the Trinity. Gregory Nazianzen +(328) received this designation because he defended the deity of Christ against the +Arians. For a modern instance of this use of the term <q>theology</q> in the narrow sense, +see the title of Dr. Hodge's first volume: <q>Systematic Theology, Vol. I: <hi rend='italic'>Theology</hi>.</q> +But theology is not simply <q>the science of God,</q> nor even <q>the science of God and +man.</q> It also gives account of the relations between God and the universe. +</p> + +<p> +If the universe were God, theology would be the only science. Since the universe is +but a manifestation of God and is distinct from God, there are sciences of nature and of +mind. Theology is <q>the science of the sciences,</q> not in the sense of including all these +sciences, but in the sense of using their results and of showing their underlying ground; +(see Wardlaw, Theology, 1:1, 2). Physical science is not a part of theology. As a mere +physicist, Humboldt did not need to mention the name of God in his <q>Cosmos</q> (but see +Cosmos, 2:418, where Humboldt says: <q>Psalm 104 presents an image of the whole +Cosmos</q>). Bishop of Carlisle: <q>Science is atheous, and therefore cannot be atheistic.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Only when we consider the relations of finite things to God, does the study of them +furnish material for theology. Anthropology is a part of theology, because man's +nature is the work of God and because God's dealings with man throw light upon the +character of God. God is known through his works and his activities. Theology +therefore gives account of these works and activities so far as they come within our +knowledge. All other sciences require theology for their complete explanation. Proudhon: +<q>If you go very deeply into politics, you are sure to get into theology.</q> On the +<pb n='002'/><anchor id='Pg002'/> +definition of theology, see Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 1:2; Blunt, Dict. +Doct. and Hist. Theol., art.: Theology; H. B. Smith, Introd. to Christ. Theol., 44; cf. +Aristotle, Metaph., 10, 7, 4; 11, 6, 4; and Lactantius, De Ira Dei, 11. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Aim of Theology.</head> + +<p> +The aim of theology is the ascertainment of the facts respecting +God and the relations between God and the universe, and the exhibition +of these facts in their rational unity, as connected parts of a formulated +and organic system of truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In defining theology as a science, we indicate its aim. Science does not create; it +discovers. Theology answers to this description of a science. It discovers facts and +relations, but it does not create them. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 141—<q>Schiller, +referring to the ardor of Columbus's faith, says that if the great discoverer +had not found a continent, he would have created one. But faith is not creative. Had +Columbus not found the land—had there been no real object answering to his belief—his +faith would have been a mere fancy.</q> Because theology deals with objective facts, +we refuse to define it as <q>the science of religion</q>; <hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> Am. Theol. Rev., 1850:101-126, +and Thornwell, Theology, 1:139. Both the facts and the relations with which theology +has to deal have an existence independent of the subjective mental processes of the +theologian. +</p> + +<p> +Science is not only the observing, recording, verifying, and formulating of objective +facts; it is also the recognition and explication of the relations between these +facts, and the synthesis of both the facts and the rational principles which unite them +in a comprehensive, rightly proportioned, and organic system. Scattered bricks and +timbers are not a house; severed arms, legs, heads and trunks from a dissecting room +are not living men; and facts alone do not constitute science. Science = facts + relations; +Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, I, Introd., 43—<q>There may be facts without +science, as in the knowledge of the common quarryman; there may be thought without +science, as in the early Greek philosophy.</q> A. MacDonald: <q>The <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> method +is related to the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a posteriori</foreign> as the sails to the ballast of the boat: the more philosophy +the better, provided there are a sufficient number of facts; otherwise, there is danger +of upsetting the craft.</q> +</p> + +<p> +President Woodrow Wilson: <q><q>Give us the facts</q> is the sharp injunction of our age +to its historians ... But facts of themselves do not constitute the truth. The truth is +abstract, not concrete. It is the just idea, the right revelation, of what things mean. +It is evoked only by such arrangements and orderings of facts as suggest meanings.</q> +Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 14—<q>The pursuit of science is the pursuit of relations.</q> +Everett, Science of Thought, 3—<q>Logy</q> (<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, in <q>theology</q>), from λόγος, += word + reason, expression + thought, fact + idea; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>John 1:1—<q>In the beginning was the +Word.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +As theology deals with objective facts and their relations, so its arrangement of these +facts is not optional, but is determined by the nature of the material with which it deals. +A true theology thinks over again God's thoughts and brings them into God's order, as +the builders of Solomon's temple took the stones already hewn, and put them into the +places for which the architect had designed them; Reginald Heber: <q>No hammer fell, +no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung.</q> Scientific +men have no fear that the data of physics will narrow or cramp their intellects; no +more should they fear the objective facts which are the data of theology. We cannot +make theology, any more than we can make a law of physical nature. As the natural +philosopher is <q>Naturæ minister et interpres,</q> so the theologian is the servant and +interpreter of the objective truth of God. On the Idea of Theology as a System, see +H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 126-166. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Possibility of Theology.</head> + +<p> +The possibility of theology has a threefold ground: +1. In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe; 2. In the +capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these relations; +and 3. In the provision of means by which God is brought into actual contact +with the mind, or in other words, in the provision of a revelation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Any particular science is possible only when three conditions combine, namely, the +actual existence of the object with which the science deals, the subjective capacity of +<pb n='003'/><anchor id='Pg003'/> +the human mind to know that object, and the provision of definite means by which the +object is brought into contact with the mind. We may illustrate the conditions of +theology from selenology—the science, not of <q>lunar politics,</q> which John Stuart Mill +thought so vain a pursuit, but of lunar physics. Selenology has three conditions: 1. +the objective existence of the moon; 2. the subjective capacity of the human mind to +know the moon; and 3. the provision of some means (<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, the eye and the telescope) +by which the gulf between man and the moon is bridged over, and by which the mind +can come into actual cognizance of the facts with regard to the moon. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. The existence of a God.</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe.</hi>—It has +been objected, indeed, that since God and these relations are objects +apprehended only by faith, they are not proper objects of knowledge or +subjects for science. We reply: +</p> + +<p> +A. Faith is knowledge, and a higher sort of knowledge.—Physical science +also rests upon faith—faith in our own existence, in the existence of a +world objective and external to us, and in the existence of other persons +than ourselves; faith in our primitive convictions, such as space, time, +cause, substance, design, right; faith in the trustworthiness of our faculties +and in the testimony of our fellow men. But physical science is not thereby +invalidated, because this faith, though unlike sense-perception or logical +demonstration, is yet a cognitive act of the reason, and may be defined +as certitude with respect to matters in which verification is unattainable. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The objection to theology thus mentioned and answered is expressed in the words of +Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 44, 531—<q>Faith—belief—is the organ by which we +apprehend what is beyond our knowledge.</q> But science is knowledge, and what is +beyond our knowledge cannot be matter for science. Pres. E. G. Robinson says well, +that knowledge and faith cannot be severed from one another, like bulkheads in a ship, +the first of which may be crushed in, while the second still keeps the vessel afloat. The +mind is one,—<q>it cannot be cut in two with a hatchet.</q> Faith is not antithetical to +knowledge,—it is rather a larger and more fundamental sort of knowledge. It is never +opposed to reason, but only to sight. Tennyson was wrong when he wrote: <q>We have +but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see</q> (In Memoriam, Introduction). +This would make sensuous phenomena the only objects of knowledge. Faith +in supersensible realities, on the contrary, is the highest exercise of reason. +</p> + +<p> +Sir William Hamilton consistently declares that the highest achievement of science +is the erection of an altar <q>To the Unknown God.</q> This, however, is not the representation +of Scripture. <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>John 17:3—<q>this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God</q></emph>; +and <emph>Jer. 9:24—<q>let him that glorieth glory in that he hath understanding and knoweth me.</q></emph> For criticism +of Hamilton, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336. Fichte: <q>We are born in +faith.</q> Even Goethe called himself a believer in the five senses. Balfour, Defence of +Philosophic Doubt, 277-295, shows that intuitive beliefs in space, time, cause, substance, +right, are presupposed in the acquisition of all other knowledge. Dove, Logic of the +Christian Faith, 14—<q>If theology is to be overthrown because it starts from some primary +terms and propositions, then all other sciences are overthrown with it.</q> Mozley, +Miracles, defines faith as <q>unverified reason.</q> See A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, +19-30. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Faith is a knowledge conditioned by holy affection.—The faith which +apprehends God's being and working is not opinion or imagination. It is +certitude with regard to spiritual realities, upon the testimony of our +rational nature and upon the testimony of God. Its only peculiarity as a cognitive +act of the reason is that it is conditioned by holy affection. As the +science of æsthetics is a product of reason as including a power of recognizing +beauty practically inseparable from a love for beauty, and as the +science of ethics is a product of reason as including a power of recognizing +the morally right practically inseparable from a love for the morally right, so +<pb n='004'/><anchor id='Pg004'/> +the science of theology is a product of reason, but of reason as including +a power of recognizing God which is practically inseparable from a love for +God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We here use the term <q>reason</q> to signify the mind's whole power of knowing. +Reason in this sense includes states of the sensibility, so far as they are indispensable +to knowledge. We cannot know an orange by the eye alone; to the understanding of +it, taste is as necessary as sight. The mathematics of sound cannot give us an understanding +of music; we need also a musical ear. Logic alone cannot demonstrate the +beauty of a sunset, or of a noble character; love for the beautiful and the right precedes +knowledge of the beautiful and the right. Ullman draws attention to the derivation +of <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>sapientia</foreign>, wisdom, from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>sapĕre</foreign>, to taste. So we cannot know God by intellect +alone; the heart must go with the intellect to make knowledge of divine things possible. +<q>Human things,</q> said Pascal, <q>need only to be known, in order to be loved; but +divine things must first be loved, in order to be known.</q> <q>This [religious] faith of +the intellect,</q> said Kant, <q>is founded on the assumption of moral tempers.</q> If one +were utterly indifferent to moral laws, the philosopher continues, even then religious +truths <q>would be supported by strong arguments from analogy, but not by such as an +obstinate, sceptical heart might not overcome.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Faith, then, is the highest knowledge, because it is the act of the integral soul, the +insight, not of one eye alone, but of the two eyes of the mind, intellect and love to God. +With one eye we can see an object as flat, but, if we wish to see around it and get the +stereoptic effect, we must use both eyes. It is not the theologian, but the undevout +astronomer, whose science is one-eyed and therefore incomplete. The errors of the +rationalist are errors of defective vision. Intellect has been divorced from heart, that +is, from a right disposition, right affections, right purpose in life. Intellect says: <q>I +cannot know God</q>; and intellect is right. What intellect says, the Scripture also says: +<emph>1 Cor. 2:14—<q>the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he +cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged</q>; 1:21—<q>in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom +knew not God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +The Scripture on the other hand declares that <emph><q>by faith we know</q> (Heb. 11:3)</emph>. By <q>heart</q> +the Scripture means simply the governing disposition, or the sensibility + the will; and +it intimates that the heart is an organ of knowledge: <emph>Ex. 35:25—<q>the women that were wise-hearted</q></emph>; +<emph>Ps. 34:8—<q>O taste and see that Jehovah is good</q></emph> = a right taste precedes correct sight; +<emph>Jer. 24:7—<q>I will give them a heart to know me</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 5:8—<q>Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see +God</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 24:25—<q>slow of heart to believe</q></emph>; <emph>John 7:17—<q>If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of +the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:18—<q>having the eyes of your heart +enlightened, that ye may know</q></emph>; <emph>1 John 4:7, 8—<q>Every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He +that loveth not knoweth not God.</q></emph> See Frank, Christian Certainty, 303-324; Clarke, Christ. +Theol., 362; Illingworth, Div. and Hum. Personality, 114-137; R. T. Smith, Man's Knowledge +of Man and of God, 6; Fisher, Nat. and Method of Rev., 6; William James, The +Will to Believe, 1-31; Geo. T. Ladd, on Lotze's view that love is essential to the +knowledge of God, in New World, Sept. 1895:401-406; Gunsaulus, Transfig. of Christ, +14, 15. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. Faith, therefore, can furnish, and only faith can furnish, fit and +sufficient material for a scientific theology.—As an operation of man's +higher rational nature, though distinct from ocular vision or from reasoning, +faith is not only a kind, but the highest kind, of knowing. It gives +us understanding of realities which to sense alone are inaccessible, namely, +God's existence, and some at least of the relations between God and his +creation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:50, follows Gerhard in making faith the joint act of intellect +and will. Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 77, 78, speaks not only of <q>the æsthetic +reason</q> but of <q>the moral reason.</q> Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 91, 109, 145, 191—<q>Faith +is the certitude concerning matter in which verification is unattainable.</q> Emerson, +Essays, 2:96—<q>Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul—unbelief +in rejecting them.</q> Morell, Philos. of Religion, 38, 52, 53, quotes Coleridge: <q>Faith +consists in the synthesis of the reason and of the individual will, ... and by virtue +of the former (that is, reason), faith must be a light, a form of knowing, a beholding +<pb n='005'/><anchor id='Pg005'/> +of truth.</q> Faith, then, is not to be pictured as a blind girl clinging to a cross—faith +is not blind—<q>Else the cross may just as well be a crucifix or an image of Gaudama.</q> +<q>Blind unbelief,</q> not blind faith, <q>is sure to err, And scan his works in vain.</q> As +in conscience we recognize an invisible authority, and know the truth just in proportion +to our willingness to <q>do the truth,</q> so in religion only holiness can understand +holiness, and only love can understand love (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>John 3:21—<q>he that doeth the truth cometh to the +light</q></emph>). +</p> + +<p> +If a right state of heart be indispensable to faith and so to the knowledge of God, +can there be any <q>theologia irregenitorum,</q> or theology of the unregenerate? Yes, we +answer; just as the blind man can have a science of optics. The testimony of others +gives it claims upon him; the dim light penetrating the obscuring membrane corroborates +this testimony. The unregenerate man can know God as power and justice, +and can fear him. But this is not a knowledge of God's inmost character; it furnishes +some material for a defective and ill-proportioned theology; but it does not furnish +fit or sufficient material for a correct theology. As, in order to make his science of +optics satisfactory and complete, the blind man must have the cataract removed from +his eyes by some competent oculist, so, in order to any complete or satisfactory theology, +the veil must be taken away from the heart by God himself (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>2 Cor. 3:15, 16</emph>—<q><emph>a +veil lieth upon their heart. But whensoever it</emph> [marg. <q>a man</q>] <emph>shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away</emph></q>). +</p> + +<p> +Our doctrine that faith is knowledge and the highest knowledge is to be distinguished +from that of Ritschl, whose theology is an appeal to the heart to the <emph>exclusion</emph> of the +head—to <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>fiducia</foreign> without <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>notitia</foreign>. But <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>fiducia</foreign> includes <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>notitia</foreign>, else it is blind, irrational, +and unscientific. Robert Browning, in like manner, fell into a deep speculative error, +when, in order to substantiate his optimistic faith, he stigmatized human knowledge +as merely apparent. The appeal of both Ritschl and Browning from the head to the +heart should rather be an appeal from the narrower knowledge of the mere +intellect to the larger knowledge conditioned upon right affection. See A. H. +Strong, The Great Poets and their Theology, 441. On Ritschl's postulates, see Stearns, +Evidence of Christian Experience, 274-280, and Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl'sche Theologie. +On the relation of love and will to knowledge, see Kaftan, in Am. Jour. Theology, +1900:717; Hovey, Manual Christ. Theol., 9; Foundations of our Faith, 12, 13; Shedd, +Hist. Doct., 1:154-164; Presb. Quar., Oct. 1871, Oct. 1872, Oct. 1873; Calderwood, +Philos. Infinite, 99, 117; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 2-8; New Englander, July, 1873:481; +Princeton Rev., 1864:122; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt, 124, 125; Grau, Glaube als höchste +Vernunft, in Beweis des Glaubens, 1865:110; Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 228; +Newman, Univ. Sermons, 206; Hinton, Art of Thinking, Introd. by Hodgson, 5. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Man's capacity for the knowledge of God</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain +of these relations.</hi>—But it has urged that such knowledge is impossible +for the following reasons: +</p> + +<p> +A. Because we can know only phenomena. We reply: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We know +mental as well as physical phenomena. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) In knowing phenomena, +whether mental or physical, we know substance as underlying the phenomena, +as manifested through them, and as constituting their ground of +unity. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Our minds bring to the observation of phenomena not only +this knowledge of substance, but also knowledge of time, space, cause, and +right, realities which are in no sense phenomenal. Since these objects of +knowledge are not phenomenal, the fact that God is not phenomenal cannot +prevent us from knowing him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +What substance is, we need not here determine. Whether we are realists or idealists, +we are compelled to grant that there cannot be phenomena without noumena, cannot +be appearances without something that appears, cannot be qualities without something +that is qualified. This something which underlies or stands under appearance or quality +we call substance. We are Lotzeans rather than Kantians, in our philosophy. To +say that we know, not the self, but only its manifestations in thought, is to confound +self with its thinking and to teach psychology without a soul. To say that we know +no external world, but only its manifestations in sensations, is to ignore the principle +that binds these sensations together; for without a somewhat in which qualities inhere +they can have no ground of unity. In like manner, to say that we know nothing of +<pb n='006'/><anchor id='Pg006'/> +God but his manifestations, is to confound God with the world and practically to deny +that there is a God. +</p> + +<p> +Stählin, in his work on Kant, Lotze and Ritschl, 186-191, 218, 219, says well that <q>limitation +of knowledge to phenomena involves the elimination from theology of all claim +to know the objects of the Christian faith as they are in themselves.</q> This criticism +justly classes Ritschl with Kant, rather than with Lotze who maintains that knowing +phenomena we know also the noumena manifested in them. While Ritschl professes +to follow Lotze, the whole drift of his theology is in the direction of the Kantian +identification of the world with our sensations, mind with our thoughts, and God with +such activities of his as we can perceive. A divine nature apart from its activities, a +preexistent Christ, an immanent Trinity, are practically denied. Assertions that God +is self-conscious love and fatherhood become judgments of merely subjective value. +On Ritschl, see the works of Orr, of Garvie, and of Swing; also Minton, in Pres. and +Ref. Rev., Jan. 1902:162-169, and C. W. Hodge, <hi rend='italic'>ibid.</hi>, Apl. 1902:321-326; Flint, Agnosticism, +590-597; Everett, Essays Theol. and Lit., 92-99. +</p> + +<p> +We grant that we can know God only so far as his activities reveal him, and so far as +our minds and hearts are receptive of his revelation. The appropriate faculties must +be exercised—not the mathematical, the logical, or the prudential, but the ethical and +the religious. It is the merit of Ritschl that he recognizes the practical in distinction +from the speculative reason; his error is in not recognizing that, when we do thus use +the proper powers of knowing, we gain not merely subjective but also objective truth, +and come in contact not simply with God's activities but also with God himself. Normal +religious judgments, though dependent upon subjective conditions, are not simply +<q>judgments of worth</q> or <q>value-judgments,</q>—they give us the knowledge of <q>things +in themselves.</q> Edward Caird says of his brother John Caird (Fund. Ideas of Christianity, +Introd. cxxi)—<q>The conviction that God can be known and is known, and +that, in the deepest sense, all our knowledge is knowledge of him, was the corner-stone +of his theology.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Ritschl's phenomenalism is allied to the positivism of Comte, who regarded all so-called +knowledge of other than phenomenal objects as purely negative. The phrase <q>Positive +Philosophy</q> implies indeed that all knowledge of mind is negative; see Comte, +Pos. Philosophy, Martineau's translation, 26, 28, 33—<q>In order to observe, your intellect +must pause from activity—yet it is this very activity you want to observe. If you +cannot effect the pause, you cannot observe; if you do effect it, there is nothing to +observe.</q> This view is refuted by the two facts; (1) consciousness, and (2) memory; +for consciousness is the knowing of the self side by side with the knowing of its +thoughts, and memory is the knowing of the self side by side with the knowing of its +past; see Martineau, Essays Philos. and Theol., 1:24-40, 207-212. By phenomena we +mean <q>facts, in distinction from their ground, principle, or law</q>; <q>neither phenomena +nor qualities, as such, are perceived, but objects, percepts, or beings; and it is +by an after-thought or reflex process that these are connected as qualities and are +referred to as substances</q>; see Porter, Human Intellect, 51, 238, 520, 619-637, 640-645. +</p> + +<p> +Phenomena may be internal, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, thoughts; in this case the noumenon is the mind, of +which these thoughts are the manifestations. Or, phenomena may be external, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, +color, hardness, shape, size; in this case the noumenon is matter, of which these qualities +are the manifestations. But qualities, whether mental or material, imply the existence +of a substance to which they belong: they can no more be conceived of as existing +apart from substance, than the upper side of a plank can be conceived of as existing +without an under side; see Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 47, 207-217; Martineau, +Types of Ethical Theory, 1; 455, 456—<q>Comte's assumption that mind cannot know +itself or its states is exactly balanced by Kant's assumption that mind cannot know +anything outside of itself.... It is precisely because all knowledge is of relations +that it is not and cannot be of phenomena alone. The absolute cannot <hi rend='italic'>per se</hi> be +known, because in being known it would <hi rend='italic'>ipso facto</hi> enter into relations and be absolute +no more. But neither can the phenomenal <hi rend='italic'>per se</hi> be known, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, be known as +phenomenal, without simultaneous cognition of what is non-phenomenal.</q> McCosh, +Intuitions, 138-154, states the characteristics of substance as (1) being, (2) power, (3) +permanence. Diman, Theistic Argument, 337, 363—<q>The theory that disproves God, +disproves an external world and the existence of the soul.</q> We know something beyond +phenomena, viz.: law, cause, force,—or we can have no science; see Tulloch, on Comte, +in Modern Theories, 53-73; see also Bib. Sac., 1874:211; Alden, Philosophy, 44; Hopkins, +Outline Study of Man, 87; Fleming, Vocab. of Philosophy, art.: Phenomena; +New Englander, July, 1875:537-539. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='007'/><anchor id='Pg007'/> + +<p> +B. Because we can know only that which bears analogy to our own +nature or experience. We reply: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It is not essential to knowledge +that there be similarity of nature between the knower and the known. +We know by difference as well as by likeness. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Our past experience, +though greatly facilitating new acquisitions, is not the measure of our possible +knowledge. Else the first act of knowledge would be inexplicable, +and all revelation of higher characters to lower would be precluded, as well +as all progress to knowledge which surpasses our present attainments. +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Even if knowledge depended upon similarity of nature and experience, +we might still know God, since we are made in God's image, and there +are important analogies between the divine nature and our own. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The dictum of Empedocles, <q>Similia similibus percipiuntur,</q> must be supplemented +by a second dictum, <q>Similia dissimilibus percipiuntur.</q> All things are alike, +in being objects. But knowing is distinguishing, and there must be contrast +between objects to awaken our attention. God knows sin, though it is the antithesis +to his holy being. The ego knows the non-ego. We cannot know even self, without +objectifying it, distinguishing it from its thoughts, and regarding it as another. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 79-82—<q>Knowledge is recognition and +classification.</q> But we reply that a thing must first be perceived in order to be recognized +or compared with something else; and this is as true of the first sensation as of +the later and more definite forms of knowledge,—indeed there is no sensation which +does not involve, as its complement, an at least incipient perception; see Sir William +Hamilton, Metaphysics, 351, 352; Porter, Human Intellect, 206. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Porter, Human Intellect, 486—<q>Induction is possible only upon the assumption +that the intellect of man is a reflex of the divine intellect, or that man is made in the +image of God.</q> Note, however, that man is made in God's image, not God in man's. +The painting is the image of the landscape, not, <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi>, the landscape the image of +the painting; for there is much in the landscape that has nothing corresponding to +it in the painting. Idolatry perversely makes God in the image of man, and so deifies +man's weakness and impurity. Trinity in God may have no exact counterpart in man's +present constitution, though it may disclose to us the goal of man's future development +and the meaning of the increasing differentiation of man's powers. Gore, Incarnation, +116—<q>If anthropomorphism as applied to God is false, yet theomorphism as +applied to man is true; man is made in God's image, and his qualities are, not the measure +of the divine, but their counterpart and real expression.</q> See Murphy, Scientific +Bases, 122; McCosh, in Internat. Rev., 1875:105; Bib. Sac., 1867:624; Martineau, +Types of Ethical Theory, 2:4-8, and Study of Religion, 1:94. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. Because we know only that of which we can conceive, in the sense +of forming an adequate mental image. We reply: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It is true that +we know only that of which we can conceive, if by the term <q>conceive</q> +we mean our distinguishing in thought the object known from all other +objects. But, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The objection confounds conception with that which is +merely its occasional accompaniment and help, namely, the picturing of +the object by the imagination. In this sense, conceivability is not a final +test of truth. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That the formation of a mental image is not essential +to conception or knowledge, is plain when we remember that, as a matter +of fact, we both conceive and know many things of which we cannot form +a mental image of any sort that in the least corresponds to the reality; for +example, force, cause, law, space, our own minds. So we may know God, +though we cannot form an adequate mental image of him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The objection here refuted is expressed most clearly in the words of Herbert Spencer, +First Principles, 25-36, 98—<q>The reality underlying appearances is totally and forever +inconceivable by us.</q> Mansel, Prolegomena Logica, 77, 78 (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 26) suggests the +source of this error in a wrong view of the nature of the concept: <q>The first distinguishing +<pb n='008'/><anchor id='Pg008'/> +feature of a concept, viz.: that it cannot in itself be depicted to sense or +imagination.</q> Porter, Human Intellect, 392 (see also 429, 656)—<q>The <emph>concept</emph> is not a +mental image</q>—only the <emph>percept</emph> is. Lotze: <q>Color in general is not representable by +any image; it looks neither green nor red, but has no look whatever.</q> The generic +horse has no particular color, though the individual horse may be black, white, or +bay. So Sir William Hamilton speaks of <q>the unpicturable notions of the intelligence.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 39, 40—<q>This doctrine of Nescience stands in +exactly the same relation to causal power, whether you construe it as Material Force +or as Divine Agency. Neither can be <emph>observed</emph>; one or the other must be <emph>assumed</emph>. If +you admit to the category of knowledge only what we learn from observation, particular +or generalized, then is Force unknown; if you extend the word to what is +imported by the intellect itself into our cognitive acts, to make them such, then is +God known.</q> Matter, ether, energy, protoplasm, organism, life,—no one of these can +be portrayed to the imagination; yet Mr. Spencer deals with them as objects of +Science. If these are not inscrutable, why should he regard the Power that gives +unity to all things as inscrutable? +</p> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer is not in fact consistent with himself, for in divers parts of his writings +he calls the inscrutable Reality back of phenomena the one, eternal, ubiquitous, +infinite, ultimate, absolute Existence, Power and Cause. <q>It seems,</q> says Father Dalgairns, +<q>that a great deal is known about the Unknowable.</q> Chadwick, Unitarianism, +75—<q>The beggar phrase <q>Unknowable</q> becomes, after Spencer's repeated designations +of it, as rich as Croesus with all saving knowledge.</q> Matheson: <q>To know that we +know nothing is already to have reached a fact of knowledge.</q> If Mr. Spencer +intended to exclude God from the realm of Knowledge, he should first have excluded +him from the realm of Existence; for to grant that he is, is already to grant that we +not only may know him, but that we actually to some extent do know him; see D. J. +Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 22; McCosh, Intuitions, 186-189 (Eng. ed., 214); Murphy, Scientific +Bases, 133; Bowne, Review of Spencer, 30-34; New Englander, July, 1875:543, 544; +Oscar Craig, in Presb. Rev., July, 1883:594-602. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. Because we can know truly only that which we know in whole and +not in part. We reply: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The objection confounds partial knowledge +with the knowledge of a part. We know the mind in part, but we do +not know a part of the mind. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) If the objection were valid, no real +knowledge of anything would be possible, since we know no single thing +in all its relations. We conclude that, although God is a being not composed +of parts, we may yet have a partial knowledge of him, and this +knowledge, though not exhaustive, may yet be real, and adequate to the +purposes of science. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The objection mentioned in the text is urged by Mansel, Limits of Religious +Thought, 97, 98, and is answered by Martineau, Essays, 1:291. The mind does not exist +in space, and it has no parts: we cannot speak of its south-west corner, nor can we +divide it into halves. Yet we find the material for mental science in partial knowledge +of the mind. So, while we are not <q>geographers of the divine nature</q> (Bowne, Review +of Spencer, 72), we may say with Paul, not <q>now know we a part of God,</q> but <emph><q>now I +know [God], in part</q> (1 Cor. 13:12)</emph>. We may know truly what we do not know exhaustively; +see <emph>Eph. 3:19—<q>to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.</q></emph> I do not perfectly understand +myself, yet I know myself in part; so I may know God, though I do not perfectly +understand him. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The same argument that proves God unknowable proves the universe unknowable +also. Since every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other, no one +particle can be exhaustively explained without taking account of all the rest. Thomas +Carlyle: <q>It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand +alters the centre of gravity of the universe.</q> Tennyson, Higher Pantheism: <q>Flower +in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, in +my hand, Little flower; but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and +all in all, I should know what God and man is.</q> Schurman, Agnosticism, 119—<q>Partial +as it is, this vision of the divine transfigures the life of man on earth.</q> Pfleiderer, Philos. +Religion, 1:167—<q>A faint-hearted agnosticism is worse than the arrogant and +titanic gnosticism against which it protests.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='009'/><anchor id='Pg009'/> + +<p> +E. Because all predicates of God are negative, and therefore furnish +no real knowledge. We answer: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Predicates derived from our consciousness, +such as spirit, love, and holiness, are positive. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The terms +<q>infinite</q> and <q>absolute,</q> moreover, express not merely a negative but a +positive idea—the idea, in the former case, of the absence of all limit, the +idea that the object thus described goes on and on forever; the idea, in +the latter case, of entire self-sufficiency. Since predicates of God, therefore, +are not merely negative, the argument mentioned above furnishes no +valid reason why we may not know him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 530—<q>The absolute and the infinite can +each only be conceived as a negation of the thinkable; in other words, of the absolute +and infinite we have no conception at all.</q> Hamilton here confounds the infinite, or +the absence of <emph>all</emph> limits, with the indefinite, or the absence of all <emph>known</emph> limits. <hi rend='italic'>Per +contra</hi>, see Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 248, and Philosophy of the Infinite, 272—<q>Negation +of one thing is possible only by affirmation of another.</q> Porter, Human +Intellect, 652—<q>If the Sandwich Islanders, for lack of name, had called the ox a <emph>not-hog</emph>, +the use of a negative appellation would not necessarily authorize the inference +of a want of definite conceptions or positive knowledge.</q> So with the infinite or not-finite, +the unconditioned or not-conditioned, the independent or not-dependent,—these +names do not imply that we cannot conceive and know it as something positive. +Spencer, First Principles, 92—<q>Our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though +it is, is positive, and not negative.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Schurman, Agnosticism, 100, speaks of <q>the farce of nescience playing at omniscience +in setting the bounds of science.</q> <q>The agnostic,</q> he says, <q>sets up the invisible picture +of a <foreign rend='italic'>Grand Être</foreign>, formless and colorless in itself, absolutely separated from man and +from the world—blank within and void without—its very existence indistinguishable +from its non-existence, and, bowing down before this idolatrous creation, he +pours out his soul in lamentations over the incognizableness of such a mysterious and +awful non-entity.... The truth is that the agnostic's abstraction of a Deity is +unknown, only because it is unreal.</q> See McCosh, Intuitions, 194, note; Mivart, Lessons +from Nature, 363. God is not necessarily infinite in every respect. He is infinite only +in every excellence. A plane which is unlimited in the one respect of length may be +limited in another respect, such as breadth. Our doctrine here is not therefore inconsistent +with what immediately follows. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +F. Because to know is to limit or define. Hence the Absolute as +unlimited, and the Infinite as undefined, cannot be known. We answer: +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) God is absolute, not as existing in <emph>no</emph> relation, but as existing in no +<emph>necessary</emph> relation; and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) God is infinite, not as excluding all coexistence +of the finite with himself, but as being the ground of the finite, and so +unfettered by it. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) God is actually limited by the unchangeableness of his +own attributes and personal distinctions, as well as by his self-chosen +relations to the universe he has created and to humanity in the person of +Christ. God is therefore limited and defined in such a sense as to render +knowledge of him possible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Mansel, Limitations of Religious Thought, 75-84, 93-95; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Spinoza: <q>Omnis +determinatio est negatio;</q> hence to define God is to deny him. But we reply that +perfection is inseparable from limitation. Man can be other than he is: not so God, +at least internally. But this limitation, inherent in his unchangeable attributes and +personal distinctions, is God's perfection. Externally, all limitations upon God are +self-limitations, and so are consistent with his perfection. That God should not be +able thus to limit himself in creation and redemption would render all self-sacrifice in +him impossible, and so would subject him to the greatest of limitations. We may say +therefore that God's 1. <hi rend='italic'>Perfection</hi> involves his limitation to (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) personality, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) trinity, +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) righteousness; 2. <hi rend='italic'>Revelation</hi> involves his self-limitation in (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) decree, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) creation, +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) preservation, (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) government, (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) education of the world; 3. <hi rend='italic'>Redemption</hi> involves +<pb n='010'/><anchor id='Pg010'/> +his infinite self-limitation in the (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) person and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) work of Jesus Christ; see A. H. +Strong, Christ in Creation, 87-101, and in Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1891:521-532. +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 135—<q>The infinite is not the quantitative all; the absolute +is not the unrelated.... Both absolute and infinite mean only the independent ground +of things.</q> Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, Introduc., 10—<q>Religion has to do, not with <emph>an</emph> +Object that must let itself be known because its very existence is contingent upon its +being known, but with <emph>the</emph> Object in relation to whom we are truly subject, dependent +upon him, and waiting until he manifest himself.</q> James Martineau, Study of Religion, +1:346—<q>We must not confound the <emph>infinite</emph> with the <emph>total</emph>.... The self-abnegation +of infinity is but a form of self-assertion, and the only form in which it can reveal +itself.... However instantaneous the omniscient thought, however sure the +almighty power, the execution has to be distributed in time, and must have an order +of successive steps; on no other terms can the eternal become temporal, and the infinite +articulately speak in the finite.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Perfect personality excludes, not <emph>self</emph>-determination, but determination <emph>from without</emph>, +determination <emph>by another</emph>. God's self-limitations are the self-limitations of love, +and therefore the evidences of his perfection. They are signs, not of weakness but of +power. God has limited himself to the method of evolution, gradually unfolding himself +in nature and in history. The government of sinners by a holy God involves constant +self-repression. The education of the race is a long process of divine forbearance; +Herder: <q>The limitations of the pupil are limitations of the teacher also.</q> In +inspiration, God limits himself by the human element through which he works. +Above all, in the person and work of Christ, we have infinite self-limitation: Infinity +narrows itself down to a point in the incarnation, and holiness endures the agonies of +the Cross. God's promises are also self-limitations. Thus both nature and grace are +self-imposed restrictions upon God, and these self-limitations are the means by which +he reveals himself. See Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:189, 195; Porter, Human Intellect, +653; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 130; Calderwood, Philos. Infinite, 168; McCosh, Intuitions, +186; Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 85; Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:85, 86, 362; +Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:189-191. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +G. Because all knowledge is relative to the knowing agent; that is, +what we know, we know, not as it is objectively, but only as it is related +to our own senses and faculties. In reply: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We grant that we can +know only that which has relation to our faculties. But this is simply to +say that we know only that which we come into mental contact with, that +is, we know only what we know. But, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) We deny that what we come +into mental contact with is known by us as other than it is. So far as it is +known at all, it is known as it is. In other words, the laws of our knowing +are not merely arbitrary and regulative, but correspond to the nature of +things. We conclude that, in theology, we are equally warranted in +assuming that the laws of our thought are laws of God's thought, and that +the results of normally conducted thinking with regard to God correspond +to the objective reality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaph., 96-116, and Herbert Spencer, First Principles, +68-97. This doctrine of relativity is derived from Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, who +holds that <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> judgments are simply <q>regulative.</q> But we reply that when our +primitive beliefs are found to be simply regulative, they will cease to regulate. +The forms of thought are also facts of nature. The mind does not, like the glass of a +kaleidoscope, itself furnish the forms; it recognizes these as having an existence external +to itself. The mind reads its ideas, not <emph>into</emph> nature, but <emph>in</emph> nature. Our intuitions +are not green goggles, which make all the world <emph>seem</emph> green: they are the lenses of a +microscope, which enable us to see what is objectively <emph>real</emph> (Royce, Spirit of Mod. +Philos., 125). Kant called our understanding <q>the legislator of nature.</q> But it is so, +only as discoverer of nature's laws, not as creator of them. Human reason does +impose its laws and forms upon the universe; but, in doing this, it interprets the real +meaning of the universe. +</p> + +<p> +Ladd, Philos. of Knowledge: <q>All judgment implies an objective truth according +<pb n='011'/><anchor id='Pg011'/> +to which we judge, which constitutes the standard, and with which we have something +in common, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, our minds are part of an infinite and eternal Mind.</q> French +aphorism: <q>When you are right, you are more right than you think you are.</q> God +will not put us to permanent intellectual confusion. Kant vainly wrote <q>No +thoroughfare</q> over the reason in its highest exercise. Martineau, Study of Religion, +1:135, 136—<q>Over against Kant's assumption that the mind cannot know anything outside +of itself, we may set Comte's equally unwarrantable assumption that the mind +cannot know itself or its states. We cannot have philosophy without assumptions. +You dogmatize if you say that the forms correspond with reality; but you equally +dogmatize if you say that they do not.... 79—That our cognitive faculties correspond +to things <emph>as they are</emph>, is much less surprising than that they should correspond to +things <emph>as they are not</emph>.</q> W. T. Harris, in Journ. Spec. Philos., 1:22, exposes Herbert +Spencer's self-contradiction: <q>All knowledge is, not absolute, but relative; our +knowledge of this fact however is, not relative, but absolute.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 3:16-21, sets out with a correct statement +of the nature of knowledge, and gives in his adhesion to the doctrine of Lotze, as distinguished +from that of Kant. Ritschl's statement may be summarized as follows: +<q>We deal, not with the abstract God of metaphysics, but with the God self-limited, +who is revealed in Christ. We do not know either things or God <emph>apart from</emph> their +phenomena or manifestations, as Plato imagined; we do not know phenomena or manifestations +<emph>alone</emph>, without knowing either things or God, as Kant supposed; but we do +know both things and God <emph>in</emph> their phenomena or manifestations, as Lotze taught. +We hold to no mystical union with God, back of all experience in religion, as Pietism +does; soul is always and only active, and religion is the activity of the human spirit, in +which feeling, knowing and willing combine in an intelligible order.</q> +</p> + +<p> +But Dr. C. M. Mead, Ritschl's Place in the History of Doctrine, has well shown that +Ritschl has not followed Lotze. His <q>value-judgments</q> are simply an application to +theology of the <q>regulative</q> principle of Kant. He holds that we can know things +not as they are in themselves, but only as they are for us. We reply that what things +are worth for us depends on what they are in themselves. Ritschl regards the doctrines +of Christ's preexistence, divinity and atonement as intrusions of metaphysics +into theology, matters about which we cannot know, and with which we have nothing +to do. There is no propitiation or mystical union with Christ; and Christ is our +Example, but not our atoning Savior. Ritschl does well in recognizing that love in +us gives eyes to the mind, and enables us to see the beauty of Christ and his truth. +But our judgment is not, as he holds, a merely subjective value-judgment,—it is a +coming in contact with objective fact. On the theory of knowledge held by Kant, +Hamilton and Spencer, see Bishop Temple, Bampton Lectures for 1884:13; H. B. +Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336; J. S. Mill, Examination, 1:113-134; Herbert, +Modern Realism Examined; M. B. Anderson, art.: <q>Hamilton,</q> in Johnson's Encyclopædia; +McCosh, Intuitions, 139-146, 340, 341, and Christianity and Positivism, 97-123; +Maurice, What is Revelation? Alden, Intellectual Philosophy, 48-79, esp. 71-79; Porter, +Hum. Intellect, 523; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 103; Bib. Sac. April, 1868:341; +Princeton Rev., 1864:122; Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 76; Bowen, in Princeton +Rev., March, 1878:445-448; Mind, April, 1878:257; Carpenter, Mental Physiology, +117; Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 109-113; Iverach, in Present Day Tracts, 5: No. 29; +Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:79, 120, 121, 135, 136. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. God's revelation of himself to man.</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>In God's actual revelation of himself and certain of these relations.</hi>—As +we do not in this place attempt a positive proof of God's existence +or of man's capacity for the knowledge of God, so we do not now +attempt to prove that God has brought himself into contact with man's +mind by revelation. We shall consider the grounds of this belief hereafter. +Our aim at present is simply to show that, granting the fact of +revelation, a scientific theology is possible. This has been denied upon +the following grounds: +</p> + +<p> +A. That revelation, as a making known, is necessarily internal and +subjective—either a mode of intelligence, or a quickening of man's cognitive +powers—and hence can furnish no objective facts such as constitute +the proper material for science. +</p> + +<pb n='012'/><anchor id='Pg012'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Morell, Philos. Religion, 128-131, 143—<q>The Bible cannot in strict accuracy of language +be called a revelation, since a revelation always implies an actual process of +intelligence in a living mind.</q> F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, 152—<q>Of our moral +and spiritual God we know nothing without—everything within.</q> Theodore Parker: +<q>Verbal revelation can never communicate a simple idea like that of God, Justice, +Love, Religion</q>; see review of Parker in Bib. Sac., 18:24-27. James Martineau, Seat +of Authority in Religion: <q>As many minds as there are that know God at first hand, +so many revealing acts there have been, and as many as know him at second hand are +strangers to revelation</q>; so, assuming external revelation to be impossible, Martineau +subjects all the proofs of such revelation to unfair destructive criticism. Pfleiderer, +Philos. Religion, 1:185—<q>As all revelation is originally an <emph>inner</emph> living experience, +the springing up of religious truth in the heart, no external event can belong in itself +to revelation, no matter whether it be naturally or supernaturally brought about.</q> +Professor George M. Forbes: <q>Nothing can be revealed to us which we do not grasp +with our reason. It follows that, so far as reason acts normally, it is a part of revelation.</q> +Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel, 30—<q>The revelation of God is the growth of the +idea of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In reply to this objection, urged mainly by idealists in philosophy, +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We grant that revelation, to be effective, must be the means of +inducing a new mode of intelligence, or in other words, must be understood. +We grant that this understanding of divine things is impossible +without a quickening of man's cognitive powers. We grant, moreover, +that revelation, when originally imparted, was often internal and +subjective. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 51-53, on <emph>Gal. 1:16—<q>to reveal his Son in me</q></emph>: <q>The +revelation on the way to Damascus would not have enlightened Paul, had it been +merely a vision to his eye. Nothing can be revealed <emph>to</emph> us which has not been revealed +<emph>in</emph> us. The eye does not see the beauty of the landscape, nor the ear hear the beauty +of music. So flesh and blood do not reveal Christ to us. Without the teaching of +the Spirit, the external facts will be only like the letters of a book to a child that cannot +read.</q> We may say with Channing: <q>I am more sure that my rational nature is +from God, than that any book is the expression of his will.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) But we deny that external revelation is therefore useless or impossible. +Even if religious ideas sprang wholly from within, an external revelation +might stir up the dormant powers of the mind. Religious ideas, +however, do not spring wholly from within. External revelation can +impart them. Man can reveal himself to man by external communications, +and, if God has equal power with man, God can reveal himself to +man in like manner. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Rogers, in his Eclipse of Faith, asks pointedly: <q>If Messrs. Morell and Newman +can teach by a book, cannot God do the same?</q> Lotze, Microcosmos, 2:660 (book 9, +chap. 4), speaks of revelation as <q>either contained in some divine act of historic +occurrence, or continually repeated in men's hearts.</q> But in fact there is no alternative +here; the strength of the Christian creed is that God's revelation is both +external and internal; see Gore, in Lux Mundi, 338. Rainy, in Critical Review, 1:1-21, +well says that Martineau unwarrantably <emph>isolates</emph> the witness of God to the individual +soul. The inward needs to be combined with the outward, in order to make sure that +it is not a vagary of the imagination. We need to distinguish God's revelations from +our own fancies. Hence, before giving the internal, God commonly gives us the +external, as a standard by which to try our impressions. We are finite and sinful, +and we need authority. The external revelation commends itself as authoritative to +the heart which recognizes its own spiritual needs. External authority evokes the +inward witness and gives added clearness to it, but only historical revelation furnishes +indubitable proof that God is love, and gives us assurance that our longings after +God are not in vain. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='013'/><anchor id='Pg013'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Hence God's revelation may be, and, as we shall hereafter see, it is, +in great part, an external revelation in works and words. The universe is +a revelation of God; God's works in nature precede God's words in history. +We claim, moreover, that, in many cases where truth was originally communicated +internally, the same Spirit who communicated it has brought +about an external record of it, so that the internal revelation might be +handed down to others than those who first received it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We must not limit revelation to the Scriptures. The eternal Word antedated the written +word, and through the eternal Word God is made known in nature and in history. Internal +revelation is preceded by, and conditioned upon, external revelation. In point of +time earth comes before man, and sensation before perception. Action best expresses +character, and historic revelation is more by deeds than by words. Dorner, Hist. Prot. +Theol., 1:231-264—<q>The Word is not in the Scriptures alone. The whole creation +reveals the Word. In nature God shows his power; in incarnation his grace and truth. +Scripture testifies of these, but Scripture is not the essential Word. The Scripture +is truly apprehended and appropriated when in it and through it we see the living and +present Christ. It does not bind men to itself alone, but it points them to the Christ +of whom it testifies. Christ is the authority. In the Scriptures he points us to himself +and demands our faith in him. This faith, once begotten, leads us to new appropriation +of Scripture, but also to new criticism of Scripture. We find Christ more +and more in Scripture, and yet we judge Scripture more and more by the standard +which we find in Christ.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 71-82: <q>There is but one authority—Christ. His +Spirit works in many ways, but chiefly in two: first, the inspiration of the Scriptures, +and, secondly, the leading of the church into the truth. The latter is not to be isolated +or separated from the former. Scripture is law to the Christian consciousness, and +Christian consciousness in time becomes law to the Scripture—interpreting, criticizing, +verifying it. The word and the spirit answer to each other. Scripture and faith are coördinate. +Protestantism has exaggerated the first; Romanism the second. Martineau +fails to grasp the coördination of Scripture and faith.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) With this external record we shall also see that there is given +under proper conditions a special influence of God's Spirit, so to quicken +our cognitive powers that the external record reproduces in our minds the +ideas with which the minds of the writers were at first divinely filled. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We may illustrate the need of internal revelation from Egyptology, which is impossible +so long as the external revelation in the hieroglyphics is uninterpreted; from the +ticking of the clock in a dark room, where only the lit candle enables us to tell the time; +from the landscape spread out around the Rigi in Switzerland, invisible until the first +rays of the sun touch the snowy mountain peaks. External revelation (φανέρωσις, <emph>Rom. 1:19, +20</emph>) must be supplemented by internal revelation (ἀποκάλυψις, <emph>1 Cor. 2:10, 12</emph>). Christ is the +organ of external, the Holy Spirit the organ of internal, revelation. In Christ (<emph>2 Cor. 1:20</emph>) +are <emph><q>the yea</q></emph> and <emph><q>the Amen</q></emph>—the objective certainty and the subjective certitude, +the reality and the realization. +</p> + +<p> +Objective certainty must become subjective certitude in order to be a scientific +theology. Before conversion we have the first, the external truth of Christ; only at conversion +and after conversion do we have the second, <emph><q>Christ formed in us</q> (Gal. 4:19)</emph>. We have +objective revelation at Sinai (<emph>Ex. 20:22</emph>); subjective revelation in Elisha's knowledge of +Gehazi (<emph>2 K. 5:26</emph>). James Russell Lowell, Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire: <q>Therefore +with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs Life in the +withered words! how swift recede Time's shadows! and how glows again Through its +dead mass the incandescent verse, As when upon the anvil of the brain It glittering +lay, cyclopically wrought By the fast throbbing hammers of the poet's thought!</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Internal revelations thus recorded, and external revelations thus +interpreted, both furnish objective facts which may serve as proper material +for science. Although revelation in its widest sense may include, and +as constituting the ground of the possibility of theology does include, both +<pb n='014'/><anchor id='Pg014'/> +insight and illumination, it may also be used to denote simply a provision +of the external means of knowledge, and theology has to do with +inward revelations only as they are expressed in, or as they agree with, +this objective standard. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We have here suggested the vast scope and yet the insuperable limitations of theology. +So far as God is revealed, whether in nature, history, conscience, or Scripture, +theology may find material for its structure. Since Christ is not simply the incarnate +Son of God but also the eternal Word, the only Revealer of God, there is no theology +apart from Christ, and all theology is Christian theology. Nature and history are but +the dimmer and more general disclosures of the divine Being, of which the Cross is +the culmination and the key. God does not intentionally conceal himself. He wishes +to be known. He reveals himself at all times just as fully as the capacity of his creatures +will permit. The infantile intellect cannot understand God's boundlessness, nor +can the perverse disposition understand God's disinterested affection. Yet all truth is +in Christ and is open to discovery by the prepared mind and heart. +</p> + +<p> +The Infinite One, so far as he is unrevealed, is certainly unknowable to the finite. But +the Infinite One, so far as he manifests himself, is knowable. This suggests the meaning +of the declarations: <emph>John 1:18—<q>No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in +the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him</q></emph>; <emph>14:9—<q>he that hath seen me hath seen the Father</q></emph>; <emph>1 Tim. 6:16—<q>whom +no man hath seen, nor can see.</q></emph> We therefore approve of the definition of Kaftan, +Dogmatik, 1—<q>Dogmatics is the science of the Christian truth which is believed and +acknowledged in the church upon the ground of the divine revelation</q>—in so far as it +limits the scope of theology to truth revealed by God and apprehended by faith. But +theology presupposes both God's external and God's internal revelations, and these, as +we shall see, include nature, history, conscience and Scripture. On the whole subject, +see Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:37-43; Nitzsch, System Christ. Doct., 72; Luthardt, Fund. +Truths, 193; Auberlen, Div. Rev., Introd., 29; Martineau, Essays, 1:171, 280; Bib. Sac., +1867:593, and 1872:428; Porter, Human Intellect, 373-375; C. M. Mead, in Boston Lectures, +1871:58. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. That many of the truths thus revealed are too indefinite to constitute +the material for science, because they belong to the region of the feelings, +because they are beyond our full understanding, or because they are +destitute of orderly arrangement. +</p> + +<p> +We reply: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Theology has to do with subjective feelings only as they can be +defined, and shown to be effects of objective truth upon the mind. They +are not more obscure than are the facts of morals or of psychology, and the +same objection which would exclude such feelings from theology would +make these latter sciences impossible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Jacobi and Schleiermacher, who regard theology as a mere account of devout +Christian feelings, the grounding of which in objective historical facts is a matter of +comparative indifference (Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 2:401-403). Schleiermacher +therefore called his system of theology <q>Der Christliche Glaube,</q> and many since his +time have called their systems by the name of <q>Glaubenslehre.</q> Ritschl's <q>value-judgments,</q> +in like manner, render theology a merely subjective science, if any +subjective science is possible. Kaftan improves upon Ritschl, by granting that we +know, not only Christian feelings, but also Christian facts. Theology is the science of +God, and not simply the science of faith. Allied to the view already mentioned is that +of Feuerbach, to whom religion is a matter of subjective fancy; and that of Tyndall, +who would remit theology to the region of vague feeling and aspiration, but would +exclude it from the realm of science; see Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, translated +by Marian Evans (George Eliot); also Tyndall, Belfast Address. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Those facts of revelation which are beyond our full understanding may, +like the nebular hypothesis in astronomy, the atomic theory in chemistry, +or the doctrine of evolution in biology, furnish a principle of union between +<pb n='015'/><anchor id='Pg015'/> +great classes of other facts otherwise irreconcilable. We may define our +concepts of God, and even of the Trinity, at least sufficiently to distinguish +them from all other concepts; and whatever difficulty may encumber the +putting of them into language only shows the importance of attempting it +and the value of even an approximate success. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Horace Bushnell: <q>Theology can never be a science, on account of the infirmities of +language.</q> But this principle would render void both ethical and political science. +Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, 145—<q>Hume and Gibbon refer to faith as something +too sacred to rest on proof. Thus religious beliefs are made to hang in mid-air, +without any support. But the foundation of these beliefs is no less solid for the reason +that empirical tests are not applicable to them. The data on which they rest are real, +and the inferences from the data are fairly drawn.</q> Hodgson indeed pours contempt +on the whole intuitional method by saying: <q>Whatever you are totally ignorant of, +assert to be the explanation of everything else!</q> Yet he would probably grant that +he begins his investigations by assuming his own existence. The doctrine of the +Trinity is not wholly comprehensible by us, and we accept it at the first upon the testimony +of Scripture; the full proof of it is found in the fact that each successive doctrine +of theology is bound up with it, and with it stands or falls. The Trinity is rational +because it explains Christian experience as well as Christian doctrine. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Even though there were no orderly arrangement of these facts, either +in nature or in Scripture, an accurate systematizing of them by the human +mind would not therefore be proved impossible, unless a principle were +assumed which would show all physical science to be equally impossible. +Astronomy and geology are constructed by putting together multitudinous +facts which at first sight seem to have no order. So with theology. And +yet, although revelation does not present to us a dogmatic system ready-made, +a dogmatic system is not only implicitly contained therein, but parts +of the system are wrought out in the epistles of the New Testament, as for +example in Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:3, 4; 8:6; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 6:1, +2. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We may illustrate the construction of theology from the dissected map, two pieces +of which a father puts together, leaving his child to put together the rest. Or we may +illustrate from the physical universe, which to the unthinking reveals little of its order. +<q>Nature makes no fences.</q> One thing seems to glide into another. It is man's business +to distinguish and classify and combine. Origen: <q>God gives us truth in single +threads, which we must weave into a finished texture.</q> Andrew Fuller said of the +doctrines of theology that <q>they are united together like chain-shot, so that, whichever +one enters the heart, the others must certainly follow.</q> George Herbert: <q>Oh +that I knew how all thy lights combine, And the configuration of their glory; Seeing +not only how each verse doth shine, But all the constellations of the story!</q> +</p> + +<p> +Scripture hints at the possibilities of combination, in <emph>Rom. 5:12-19</emph>, with its grouping of +the facts of sin and salvation about the two persons, Adam and Christ; in <emph>Rom. 4:24, 25</emph>, +with its linking of the resurrection of Christ and our justification; in <emph>1 Cor. 3:6</emph>, with its +indication of the relations between the Father and Christ; in <emph>1 Tim. 3:16</emph>, with its poetical +summary of the facts of redemption (see Commentaries of DeWette, Meyer, Fairbairn); +in <emph>Heb. 6:1, 2</emph>, with its statement of the first principles of the Christian faith. +God's furnishing of concrete facts in theology, which we ourselves are left to systematize, +is in complete accordance with his method of procedure with regard to the +development of other sciences. See Martineau, Essays, 1:29, 40; Am. Theol. Rev., +1859:101-126—art. on the Idea, Sources and Uses of Christian Theology. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Necessity of Theology.</head> + +<p> +The necessity of theology has its grounds: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the organizing instinct of the human mind.</hi> This organizing +principle is a part of our constitution. The mind cannot endure confusion +or apparent contradiction in known facts. The tendency to harmonize +and unify its knowledge appears as soon as the mind becomes reflective; +<pb n='016'/><anchor id='Pg016'/> +just in proportion to its endowments and culture does the impulse to systematize +and formulate increase. This is true of all departments of human +inquiry, but it is peculiarly true of our knowledge of God. Since the truth +with regard to God is the most important of all, theology meets the deepest +want of man's rational nature. Theology is a rational necessity. If all +existing theological systems were destroyed to-day, new systems would rise +to-morrow. So inevitable is the operation of this law, that those who most +decry theology show nevertheless that they have made a theology for themselves, +and often one sufficiently meagre and blundering. Hostility to +theology, where it does not originate in mistaken fears for the corruption +of God's truth or in a naturally illogical structure of mind, often proceeds +from a license of speculation which cannot brook the restraints of a complete +Scriptural system. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +President E. G. Robinson: <q>Every man has as much theology as he can hold.</q> Consciously +or unconsciously, we philosophize, as naturally as we speak prose. <q>Se +moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosopher.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 21—<q>Christianity +became metaphysical, only because man is rational. This rationality means that +he must attempt <q>to give account of things,</q> as Plato said, <q>because he was a man, not +merely because he was a Greek.</q></q> Men often denounce systematic theology, while +they extol the sciences of matter. Has God then left only the facts with regard to himself +in so unrelated a state that man cannot put them together? All other sciences are +valuable only as they contain or promote the knowledge of God. If it is praiseworthy +to classify beetles, one science may be allowed to reason concerning God and the soul. +In speaking of Schelling, Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 173, satirically exhorts +us: <q>Trust your genius; follow your noble heart; change your doctrine whenever +your heart changes, and change your heart often,—such is the practical creed of the +romanticists.</q> Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel, 3—<q>Just those persons who disclaim metaphysics +are sometimes most apt to be infected with the disease they profess to abhor—and +not to know when they have it.</q> See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 27-52; Murphy, +Scientific Bases of Faith, 195-199. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the relation of systematic truth to the development of character.</hi> +Truth thoroughly digested is essential to the growth of Christian +character in the individual and in the church. All knowledge of God has +its influence upon character, but most of all the knowledge of spiritual +facts in their relations. Theology cannot, as has sometimes been objected, +deaden the religious affections, since it only draws out from their sources +and puts into rational connection with each other the truths which are +best adapted to nourish the religions affections. On the other hand, the +strongest Christians are those who have the firmest grasp upon the great +doctrines of Christianity; the heroic ages of the church are those which +have witnessed most consistently to them; the piety that can be injured by +the systematic exhibition of them must be weak, or mystical, or mistaken. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Some knowledge is necessary to conversion—at least, knowledge of sin and knowledge +of a Savior; and the putting together of these two great truths is a beginning of +theology. All subsequent growth of character is conditioned upon the increase of this +knowledge. <emph>Col. 1:10—αὐξανόμενοι τῇ ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ Θεοῦ [omit ἐν] = <q>increasing by the knowledge +of God</q></emph>—the instrumental dative represents the knowledge of God as the dew or rain +which nurtures the growth of the plant; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>3 Pet. 3:18—<q>grow in the grace and knowledge of our +Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.</q></emph> For texts which represent truth as nourishment, see <emph>Jer. 3:15—<q>feed +you with knowledge and understanding</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 4:4—<q>Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every +word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 3:1, 2—<q>babes in Christ ... I fed you with milk, not +with meat</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 5:14—<q>but solid food is for full-grown men.</q></emph> Christian character rests upon Christian +truth as its foundation; see <emph>1 Cor. 3:10-15—<q>I laid a foundation, and another buildeth thereon.</q></emph> +See Dorus Clarke, Saying the Catechism; Simon, on Christ Doct. and Life, in Bib. Sac., +July, 1884:433-439. +</p> + +<pb n='017'/><anchor id='Pg017'/> + +<p> +Ignorance is the mother of superstition, not of devotion. Talbot W. Chambers:—<q>Doctrine +without duty is a tree without fruits; duty without doctrine is a tree without +roots.</q> Christian morality is a fruit which grows only from the tree of Christian +doctrine. We cannot long keep the fruits of faith after we have cut down the tree +upon which they have grown. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 82—<q>Naturalistic virtue +is parasitic, and when the host perishes, the parasite perishes also. Virtue without +religion will die.</q> Kidd, Social Evolution, 214—<q>Because the fruit survives for a time +when removed from the tree, and even mellows and ripens, shall we say that it is +independent of the tree?</q> The twelve manner of fruits on the Christmas-tree are +only tacked on,—they never grew there, and they can never reproduce their kind. +The withered apple swells out under the exhausted receiver, but it will go back again +to its former shrunken form; so the self-righteousness of those who get out of the +atmosphere of Christ and have no divine ideal with which to compare themselves. +W. M. Lisle: <q>It is the mistake and disaster of the Christian world that effects are +sought instead of causes.</q> George A. Gordon, Christ of To-day, 28—<q>Without the historical +Christ and personal love for that Christ, the broad theology of our day will +reduce itself to a dream, powerless to rouse a sleeping church.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the importance to the preacher of definite and just views of +Christian doctrine.</hi> His chief intellectual qualification must be the +power clearly and comprehensively to conceive, and accurately and powerfully +to express, the truth. He can be the agent of the Holy Spirit in converting +and sanctifying men, only as he can wield <q>the sword of the +Spirit, which is the word of God</q> (Eph. 6:17), or, in other language, +only as he can impress truth upon the minds and consciences of his +hearers. Nothing more certainly nullifies his efforts than confusion and +inconsistency in his statements of doctrine. His object is to replace +obscure and erroneous conceptions among his hearers by those which are +correct and vivid. He cannot do this without knowing the facts with +regard to God in their relations—knowing them, in short, as parts of a +system. With this truth he is put in trust. To mutilate it or misrepresent +it, is not only sin against the Revealer of it,—it may prove the ruin of +men's souls. The best safeguard against such mutilation or misrepresentation, +is the diligent study of the several doctrines of the faith in their +relations to one another, and especially to the central theme of theology, +the person and work of Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The more refined and reflective the age, the more it requires reasons for feeling. +Imagination, as exercised in poetry and eloquence and as exhibited in politics or +war, is not less strong than of old,—it is only more rational. Notice the progress from +<q>Buncombe</q>, in legislative and forensic oratory, to sensible and logical address. Bassanio +in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, 1:1:113—<q>Gratiano speaks an infinite deal +of nothing.... His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff.</q> +So in pulpit oratory, mere Scripture quotation and fervid appeal are no longer sufficient. +As well be a howling dervish, as to indulge in windy declamation. Thought is +the staple of preaching. Feeling must be roused, but only by bringing men to <emph><q>the +knowledge of the truth</q> (2 Tim. 2:25)</emph>. The preacher must furnish the basis for feeling by producing +intelligent conviction. He must instruct before he can move. If the object of +the preacher is first to know God, and secondly to make God known, then the study of +theology is absolutely necessary to his success. +</p> + +<p> +Shall the physician practice medicine without study of physiology, or the lawyer +practice law without study of jurisprudence? Professor Blackie: <q>One may as +well expect to make a great patriot out of a fencing-master, as to make a great orator +out of a mere rhetorician.</q> The preacher needs doctrine, to prevent his being a mere +barrel-organ, playing over and over the same tunes. John Henry Newman: <q>The +false preacher is one who has to say something; the true preacher is one who has something +to say.</q> Spurgeon, Autobiography, 1:167—<q>Constant change of creed is sure loss. +<pb n='018'/><anchor id='Pg018'/> +If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very +large loft in which to store the apples. When people are shifting their doctrinal principles, +they do not bring forth much fruit.... We shall never have great preachers +till we have great divines. You cannot build a man of war out of a currant-bush, +nor can great soul-moving preachers be formed out of superficial students.</q> Illustrate +the harmfulness of ignorant and erroneous preaching, by the mistake in a physician's +prescription; by the wrong trail at Lake Placid which led astray those ascending Whiteface; +by the sowing of acorns whose crop was gathered only after a hundred years. +Slight divergences from correct doctrine on our part may be ruinously exaggerated +in those who come after us. Though the moth-miller has no teeth, its offspring has. +<emph>2 Tim. 2:2—<q>And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful +men, who shall be able to teach others also.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the intimate connection between correct doctrine and the +safety and aggressive power of the church.</hi> The safety and progress of +the church is dependent upon her <q>holding the pattern of sound words</q> +(2 Tim. 1:13), and serving as <q>pillar and ground of the truth</q> (1 Tim. 3:15). +Defective understanding of the truth results sooner or later in +defects of organization, of operation, and of life. Thorough comprehension +of Christian truth as an organized system furnishes, on the other hand, +not only an invaluable defense against heresy and immorality, but also an +indispensable stimulus and instrument in aggressive labor for the world's +conversion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The creeds of Christendom have not originated in mere speculative curiosity and +logical hair-splitting. They are statements of doctrine in which the attacked and +imperiled church has sought to express the truth which constitutes her very life. +Those who deride the early creeds have small conception of the intellectual acumen and +the moral earnestness which went to the making of them. The creeds of the third and +fourth centuries embody the results of controversies which exhausted the possibilities +of heresy with regard to the Trinity and the person of Christ, and which set up bars +against false doctrine to the end of time. Mahaffy: <q>What converted the world +was not the example of Christ's life,—it was the dogma of his death.</q> Coleridge: <q>He +who does not withstand, has no standing ground of his own.</q> Mrs. Browning: <q>Entire +intellectual toleration is the mark of those who believe nothing.</q> E. G. Robinson, +Christian Theology, 360-362—<q>A doctrine is but a precept in the style of a proposition; +and a precept is but a doctrine in the form of a command.... Theology is God's +garden; its trees are trees of his planting; and <emph><q>all the trees of the Lord are full of sap</q> (Ps. 104:16).</emph></q> +</p> + +<p> +Bose, Ecumenical Councils: <q>A creed is not catholic because a council of many or +of few bishops decreed it, but because it expresses the common conviction of entire +generations of men and women who turned their understanding of the New Testament +into those forms of words.</q> Dorner: <q>The creeds are the precipitate of the religious +consciousness of mighty men and times.</q> Foster, Christ. Life and Theol., 162—<q>It +ordinarily requires the shock of some great event to startle men into clear apprehension +and crystallization of their substantial belief. Such a shock was given by the +rough and coarse doctrine of Arius, upon which the conclusion arrived at in the Council +of Nice followed as rapidly as in chilled water the crystals of ice will sometimes +form when the containing vessel receives a blow.</q> Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 287—<q>The +creeds were not explanations, but rather denials that the Arian and Gnostic +explanations were sufficient, and declarations that they irremediably impoverished the +idea of the Godhead. They insisted on preserving that idea in all its inexplicable fulness.</q> +Denny, Studies in Theology, 192—<q>Pagan philosophies tried to capture the +church for their own ends, and to turn it into a school. In self-defense the church was +compelled to become somewhat of a school on its own account. It had to assert its +facts; it had to define its ideas; it had to interpret in its own way those facts which +men were misinterpreting.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Professor Howard Osgood: <q>A creed is like a backbone. A man does not need to +wear his backbone in front of him; but he must have a backbone, and a straight one, +or he will be a flexible if not a humpbacked Christian.</q> Yet we must remember that +creeds are <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>credita</foreign>, and not <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>credenda</foreign>; historical statements of what the church <emph>has</emph> +believed, not infallible prescriptions of what the church <emph>must</emph> believe. George Dana +<pb n='019'/><anchor id='Pg019'/> +Boardman, The Church, 98—<q>Creeds are apt to become cages.</q> Schurman, Agnosticism, +151—<q>The creeds were meant to be defensive fortifications of religion; alas, +that they should have sometimes turned their artillery against the citadel itself.</q> +T. H. Green: <q>We are told that we must be loyal to the beliefs of the Fathers. Yes, but +who knows what the Fathers believe now?</q> George A. Gordon, Christ of To-day, 60—<q>The +assumption that the Holy Spirit is not concerned in the development of theological +thought, nor manifest in the intellectual evolution of mankind, is the superlative +heresy of our generation.... The metaphysics of Jesus are absolutely essential +to his ethics.... If his thought is a dream, his endeavor for man is a delusion.</q> +See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, 1:8, 15, 16; Storrs, Div. Origin of Christianity, 121; +Ian Maclaren (John Watson), Cure of Souls, 152; Frederick Harrison, in Fortnightly +Rev., Jan. 1889. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the direct and indirect injunctions of Scripture.</hi> The Scripture +urges upon us the thorough and comprehensive study of the truth +(John 5:39, marg.,—<q>Search the Scriptures</q>), the comparing and +harmonizing of its different parts (1 Cor. 2:13—<q>comparing spiritual +things with spiritual</q>), the gathering of all about the great central fact of +revelation (Col. 1:27—<q>which is Christ in you, the hope of glory</q>), the +preaching of it in its wholeness as well as in its due proportions (2 Tim. 4:2—<q>Preach +the word</q>). The minister of the Gospel is called <q>a scribe +who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven</q> (Mat. 13:52); +the <q>pastors</q> of the churches are at the same time to be <q>teachers</q> +(Eph. 4:11); the bishop must be <q>apt to teach</q> (1 Tim. 3:2), <q>handling +aright the word of truth</q> (2 Tim. 2:15), <q>holding to the faithful word +which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in +the sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers</q> (Tit. 1:9). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As a means of instructing the church and of securing progress in his own understanding +of Christian truth, it is well for the pastor to preach regularly each month a +doctrinal sermon, and to expound in course the principal articles of the faith. The +treatment of doctrine in these sermons should be simple enough to be comprehensible +by intelligent youth; it should be made vivid and interesting by the help of brief +illustrations; and at least one-third of each sermon should be devoted to the practical +applications of the doctrine propounded. See Jonathan Edwards's sermon on the +Importance of the Knowledge of Divine Truth, in Works, 4:1-15. The actual sermons +of Edwards, however, are not models of doctrinal preaching for our generation. They +are too scholastic in form, too metaphysical for substance; there is too little of Scripture +and too little of illustration. The doctrinal preaching of the English Puritans in +a similar manner addressed itself almost wholly to adults. The preaching of our Lord +on the other hand was adapted also to children. No pastor should count himself +faithful, who permits his young people to grow up without regular instruction from +the pulpit in the whole circle of Christian doctrine. Shakespeare, K. Henry VI, 2nd +part, 4:7—<q>Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to +heaven.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. Relation of Theology to Religion.</head> + +<p> +Theology and religion are related to each +other as effects, in different spheres, of the same cause. As theology is an +effect produced in the sphere of systematic thought by the facts respecting +God and the universe, so religion is an effect which these same facts produce +in the sphere of individual and collective life. With regard to the +term <q>religion</q>, notice: +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Derivation.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The derivation from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religāre</foreign>, <q>to bind back</q> (man to God), is +negatived by the authority of Cicero and of the best modern etymologists; +by the difficulty, on this hypothesis, of explaining such forms as <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religio</foreign>, +<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religens</foreign>; and by the necessity, in that case, of presupposing a fuller +<pb n='020'/><anchor id='Pg020'/> +knowledge of sin and redemption than was common to the ancient world. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The more correct derivation is from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>relegĕre</foreign>, <q>to go over again,</q> +<q>carefully to ponder.</q> Its original meaning is therefore <q>reverent +observance</q> (of duties due to the gods). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For advocacy of the derivation of <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religio</foreign>, as meaning <q>binding duty,</q> from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religāre</foreign>, +see Lange, Dogmatik, 1:185-196. This derivation was first proposed by Lactantius, +Inst. Div., 4:28, a Christian writer. To meet the objection that the form <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>religio</foreign> seems +derived from a verb of the third conjugation, Lange cites <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>rebellio</foreign>, from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>rebellāre</foreign>, and +<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>optio</foreign>, from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>optāre</foreign>. But we reply that these verbs of the first conjugation, like many +others, are probably derived from obsolete verbs of the third conjugation. For the +derivation favored in the text, see Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, 5te Aufl., 364; +Fick, Vergl. Wörterb. der indoger. Spr., 2:227; Vanicek, Gr.-Lat. Etym. Wörterb., +2:829; Andrews, Latin Lexicon, <hi rend='italic'>in voce</hi>; Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doctrine, 7; Van +Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 75-77; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:6; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:18; +Menzies, History of Religion, 11; Max Müller, Natural Religion, lect. 2. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. False Conceptions.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Religion is not, as Hegel declared, a kind of knowing; for it +would then be only an incomplete form of philosophy, and the measure of +knowledge in each case would be the measure of piety. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In a system of idealistic pantheism, like that of Hegel, God is the subject of religion +as well as its object. Religion is God's knowing of himself through the human consciousness. +Hegel did not utterly ignore other elements in religion. <q>Feeling, intuition, +and faith belong to it,</q> he said, <q>and mere cognition is one-sided.</q> Yet he was +always looking for the movement of <emph>thought</emph> in all forms of life; God and the universe +were but developments of the primordial <emph>idea</emph>. <q>What knowledge is worth knowing,</q> +he asked, <q>if God is unknowable? To know God is eternal life, and thinking is also +true worship.</q> Hegel's error was in regarding life as a process of thought, rather than +in regarding thought as a process of life. Here was the reason for the bitterness +between Hegel and Schleiermacher. Hegel rightly considered that feeling must become +intelligent before it is truly religious, but he did not recognize the supreme importance +of love in a theological system. He gave even less place to the will than he gave to the +emotions, and he failed to see that the knowledge of God of which Scripture speaks is +a knowing, not of the intellect alone, but of the whole man, including the affectional +and voluntary nature. +</p> + +<p> +Goethe: <q>How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. +Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth. You cannot play +the flute by blowing alone,—you must use your fingers.</q> So we can never come to +know God by thinking alone. <emph>John 7:17—<q>If any man willeth to do his will, he will know of the teaching, +whether it is of God.</q></emph> The Gnostics, Stapfer, Henry VIII, all show that there may be +much theological knowledge without true religion. Chillingworth's maxim, <q>The +Bible only, the religion of Protestants,</q> is inadequate and inaccurate; for the Bible, +without faith, love, and obedience, may become a fetich and a snare: <emph>John 5:39,40—<q>Ye +search the Scriptures, ... and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life.</q></emph> See Sterrett, Studies in +Hegel's Philosophy of Religion; Porter, Human Intellect, 59, 60, 412, 525-536, 589, 650; +Morell, Hist. Philos., 476, 477; Hamerton, Intel. Life, 214; Bib. Sac., 9:374. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Religion is not, as Schleiermacher held, the mere feeling of dependence; +for such feeling of dependence is not religious, unless exercised +toward God and accompanied by moral effort. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In German theology, Schleiermacher constitutes the transition from the old rationalism +to the evangelical faith. <q>Like Lazarus, with the grave clothes of a pantheistic +philosophy entangling his steps,</q> yet with a Moravian experience of the life of God in +the soul, he based religion upon the inner certainties of Christian feeling. But, as Principal +Fairbairn remarks, <q>Emotion is impotent unless it speaks out of conviction; and +where conviction is, there will be emotion which is potent to persuade.</q> If Christianity +is religious feeling alone, then there is no essential difference between it and other +religions, for all alike are products of the religious sentiment. But Christianity is distinguished +from other religions by its peculiar religious conceptions. Doctrine precedes +<pb n='021'/><anchor id='Pg021'/> +life, and Christian doctrine, not mere religious feeling, is the cause of Christianity +as a distinctive religion. Though faith begins in feeling, moreover, it does not +end there. We see the worthlessness of mere feeling in the transient emotions of +theatre-goers, and in the occasional phenomena of revivals. +</p> + +<p> +Sabatier, Philos. Relig., 27, adds to Schleiermacher's passive element of <emph>dependence</emph>, +the active element of <emph>prayer</emph>. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 10—<q>Schleiermacher regards God as +the <emph>Source</emph> of our being, but forgets that he is also our <emph>End</emph>.</q> Fellowship and progress +are as important elements in religion as is dependence; and fellowship must come +before progress—such fellowship as presupposes pardon and life. Schleiermacher +apparently believed in neither a personal God nor his own personal immortality; see +his Life and Letters, 2:77-90; Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:357. Charles Hodge +compares him to a ladder in a pit—a good thing for those who wish to get out, but not +for those who wish to get in. Dorner: <q>The Moravian brotherhood was his mother; +Greece was his nurse.</q> On Schleiermacher, see Herzog, Realencyclopädie, <hi rend='italic'>in voce</hi>; Bib. +Sac., 1852:375; 1883:534; Liddon, Elements of Religion, lect. I; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:14; +Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:175; Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 563-570; +Caird, Philos. Religion, 160-186. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Religion is not, as Kant maintained, morality or moral action; for +morality is conformity to an abstract law of right, while religion is essentially +a relation to a person, from whom the soul receives blessing and to +whom it surrenders itself in love and obedience. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Beschluss: <q>I know of but two beautiful +things, the starry heavens above my head, and the sense of duty within my heart.</q> +But the mere sense of duty often distresses. We object to the word <q>obey</q> as the +imperative of religion, because (1) it makes religion a matter of the will only; (2) will +presupposes affection; (3) love is not subject to will; (4) it makes God all law, and no +grace; (5) it makes the Christian a servant only, not a friend; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>John 15:15—<q>No longer do +I call you servants ... but I have called you friends</q></emph>—a relation not of service but of love +(Westcott, Bib. Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). The voice that speaks is the voice of love, rather than the +voice of law. We object also to Matthew Arnold's definition: <q>Religion is ethics +heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling; morality touched with emotion.</q> This leaves +out of view the receptive element in religion, as well as its relation to a personal God. +A truer statement would be that religion is morality toward God, as morality is +religion toward man. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 251—<q>Morality that goes beyond +mere conscientiousness must have recourse to religion</q>; see Lotze, Philos. of Religion, +128-142. Goethe: <q>Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy</q>; +see also Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:65-69; Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man, 244-246; +Liddon, Elements of Religion, 19. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Essential Idea.</head> + +<p>Religion in its essential idea is a life in God, a life +lived in recognition of God, in communion with God, and under control of +the indwelling Spirit of God. Since it is a life, it cannot be described as consisting +solely in the exercise of any one of the powers of intellect, affection, +or will. As physical life involves the unity and coöperation of all the organs +of the body, so religion, or spiritual life, involves the united working of all +the powers of the soul. To feeling, however, we must assign the logical +priority, since holy affection toward God, imparted in regeneration, is the +condition of truly knowing God and of truly serving him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man—<q>God in man, and man in God</q>—in +Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 5-79, and Religionsphilosophie, 255—Religion +is <q>Sache des ganzen Geisteslebens</q>: Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 4—<q>Religion +is the personal influence of the immanent God</q>; Sterrett, Reason and Authority +in Religion, 31, 32—<q>Religion is the reciprocal relation or communion of God and man, +involving (1) revelation, (2) faith</q>; Dr. J. W. A. Stewart: <q>Religion is fellowship with +God</q>; Pascal: <q>Piety is God sensible to the heart</q>; Ritschl, Justif. and Reconcil., 13—<q>Christianity +is an ellipse with two foci—Christ as Redeemer and Christ as King, +Christ for us and Christ in us, redemption and morality, religion and ethics</q>; Kaftan, +Dogmatik, 8—<q>The Christian religion is (1) the <emph>kingdom of God</emph> as a goal above the +<pb n='022'/><anchor id='Pg022'/> +world, to be attained by moral development here, and (2) <emph>reconciliation with God</emph> permitting +attainment of this goal in spite of our sins. Christian theology once grounded +itself in man's natural knowledge of God; we now start with religion, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, that +Christian knowledge of God which we call faith.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer: <q>Religion is an <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> theory of the universe</q>; Romanes, +Thoughts on Religion, 43, adds: <q>which assumes intelligent personality as the originating +cause of the universe, science dealing with the <emph>How</emph>, the phenomenal process, +religion dealing with the <emph>Who</emph>, the intelligent Personality who works through the +process.</q> Holland, in Lux Mundi, 27—<q>Natural life is the life in God which has not yet +arrived at this recognition</q>—the recognition of the fact that God is in all things—<q>it +is not yet, as such, religious; ... Religion is the discovery, by the son, of a Father who is +in all his works, yet is distinct from them all.</q> Dewey, Psychology, 283—<q>Feeling +finds its absolutely universal expression in religious emotion, which is the finding or +realization of self in a completely realized personality which unites in itself truth, or +the complete unity of the relations of all objects, beauty or the complete unity of all +ideal values, and rightness or the complete unity of all persons. The emotion which +accompanies the religious life is that which accompanies the complete activity of ourselves; +the self is realized and finds its true life in God.</q> Upton, Hibbert Lectures, +262—<q>Ethics is simply the growing insight into, and the effort to actualize in society, +the sense of fundamental kinship and identity of substance in all men; while religion +is the emotion and the devotion which attend the realization in our self-consciousness +of an inmost spiritual relationship arising out of that unity of substance which constitutes +man the true son of the eternal Father.</q> See Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 81-85; +Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:227; Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 10-28; Luthardt, Fund. +Truths, 147; Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:12. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. Inferences.</head> + +<p> +From this definition of religion it follows: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That in strictness there is but one religion. Man is a religious being, +indeed, as having the capacity for this divine life. He is actually religious, +however, only when he enters into this living relation to God. False +religions are the caricatures which men given to sin, or the imaginations +which men groping after light, form of this life of the soul in God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, 18—<q>If Christianity be true, it is not <emph>a</emph> +religion, but <emph>the</emph> religion. If Judaism be also true, it is so not as distinct from but as +coincident with Christianity, the one religion to which it can bear only the relation of +a part to the whole. If there be portions of truth in other religious systems, they are +not portions of other religions, but portions of the one religion which somehow or +other became incorporated with fables and falsities.</q> John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, +1:25—<q>You can never get at the true idea or essence of religion merely by +trying to find out something that is common to all religions; and it is not the lower +religions that explain the higher, but conversely the higher religion explains all the +lower religions.</q> George P. Fisher: <q>The recognition of certain elements of truth in +the ethnic religions does not mean that Christianity has defects which are to be repaired +by borrowing from them; it only means that the ethnic faiths have in fragments what +Christianity has as a whole. Comparative religion does not bring to Christianity new +truth; it provides illustrations of how Christian truth meets human needs and aspirations, +and gives a full vision of that which the most spiritual and gifted among the +heathen only dimly discerned.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, sermon on <emph>Proverbs 20:27—<q>The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah</q></emph>—<q>a lamp, +but not necessarily lighted; a lamp that can be lit only by the touch of a divine flame</q>—man +has naturally and universally a capacity for religion, but is by no means naturally +and universally religious. All false religions have some element of truth; otherwise +they could never have gained or kept their hold upon mankind. We need to recognize +these elements of truth in dealing with them. There is some silver in a counterfeit dollar, +else it would deceive no one; but the thin washing of silver over the lead does not +prevent it from being bad money. Clarke, Christian Theology, 8—<q>See Paul's methods +of dealing with heathen religion, in Acts 14 with gross paganism and in Acts 17 with its +cultured form. He treats it with sympathy and justice. Christian theology has the +advantage of walking in the light of God's self-manifestation in Christ, while heathen +<pb n='023'/><anchor id='Pg023'/> +religions grope after God and worship him in ignorance</q>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Acts 14:16—<q>We ... +bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these vain things unto a living God</q>;</emph> <emph>17:22—<q>I perceive that ye +are more than usually reverent toward the divinities.... What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set +forth unto you.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Matthew Arnold: <q>Children of men! the unseen Power whose eye Forever doth +accompany mankind, Hath looked on no religion scornfully That man did ever find. +Which has not taught weak wills how much they can? Which has not fallen on the +dry heart like rain? Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man, Thou must be born +again?</q> Christianity is absolutely exclusive, because it is absolutely inclusive. It is +not an amalgamation of other religions, but it has in it all that is best and truest +in other religions. It is the white light that contains all the colored rays. God +may have made disclosures of truth outside of Judaism, and did so in Balaam +and Melchisedek, in Confucius and Socrates. But while other religions have a +relative excellence, Christianity is the absolute religion that contains all excellencies. +Matheson, Messages of the Old Religions, 328-342—<q>Christianity is reconciliation. +Christianity includes the aspiration of Egypt; it sees, in this aspiration, God in the soul +(Brahmanism); recognizes the evil power of sin with Parseeism; goes back to a pure +beginning like China; surrenders itself to human brotherhood like Buddha; gets all +things from within like Judaism; makes the present life beautiful like Greece; seeks +a universal kingdom like Rome; shows a growth of divine life, like the Teuton. Christianity +is the manifold wisdom of God.</q> See also Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 88-93. +Shakespeare: <q>There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly +distill it out</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That the content of religion is greater than that of theology. The +facts of religion come within the range of theology only so far as they can +be definitely conceived, accurately expressed in language, and brought +into rational relation to each other. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This principle enables us to define the proper limits of religious fellowship. It should +be as wide as is religion itself. But it is important to remember what religion is. +Religion is not to be identified with the capacity for religion. Nor can we regard the +perversions and caricatures of religion as meriting our fellowship. Otherwise we might +be required to have fellowship with devil-worship, polygamy, thuggery, and the inquisition; +for all these have been dignified with the name of religion. True religion involves +some knowledge, however rudimentary, of the true God, the God of righteousness; +some sense of sin as the contrast between human character and the divine standard; +some casting of the soul upon divine mercy and a divine way of salvation, in place of +self-righteous earning of merit and reliance upon one's works and one's record; +some practical effort to realize ethical principle in a pure life and in influence over +others. Wherever these marks of true religion appear, even in Unitarians, Romanists, +Jews or Buddhists, there we recognize the demand for fellowship. But we also +attribute these germs of true religion to the inworking of the omnipresent Christ, +<emph><q>the light which lighteth every man</q> (John 1:9),</emph> and we see in them incipient repentance and faith, +even though the Christ who is their object is yet unknown by name. <emph>Christian</emph> fellowship +must have a larger basis in accepted Christian truth, and <emph>Church</emph> fellowship a still +larger basis in common acknowledgment of N. T. teaching as to the church. <emph>Religious</emph> +fellowship, in the widest sense, rests upon the fact that <emph><q>God is no respecter of persons: but in +every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him</q> (Acts 10:34, 35)</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That religion is to be distinguished from formal worship, which is +simply the outward expression of religion. As such expression, worship is +<q>formal communion between God and his people.</q> In it God speaks to +man, and man to God. It therefore properly includes the reading of +Scripture and preaching on the side of God, and prayer and song on the +side of the people. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 166—<q>Christian worship is the utterance +(outerance) of the spirit.</q> But there is more in true love than can be put into a love-letter, +and there is more in true religion than can be expressed either in theology or +in worship. Christian worship is communion between God and man. But communion +cannot be one-sided. Madame de Staël, whom Heine called <q>a whirlwind in petticoats,</q> +<pb n='024'/><anchor id='Pg024'/> +ended one of her brilliant soliloquies by saying: <q>What a delightful conversation we +have had!</q> We may find a better illustration of the nature of worship in Thomas à +Kempis's dialogues between the saint and his Savior, in the Imitation of Christ. +Goethe: <q>Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love.... +To praise a man is to put one's self on his level.</q> If this be the effect of loving and +praising man, what must be the effect of loving and praising God! Inscription in Grasmere +Church: <q>Whoever thou art that enterest this church, leave it not without one +prayer to God for thyself, for those who minister, and for those who worship here.</q> +In <emph>James 1:27—<q>Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in +their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world</q></emph>—<q><emph>religion</emph>,</q> θρησκεία, is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>cultus exterior</foreign>; +and the meaning is that <q>the external service, the outward garb, the very ritual of +Christianity, is a life of purity, love and self-devotion. What its true essence, its +inmost spirit may be, the writer does not say, but leaves this to be inferred.</q> On the +relation between religion and worship, see Prof. Day, in New Englander, Jan. 1882; +Prof. T. Harwood Pattison, Public Prayer; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1; sec. 48; Coleridge, +Aids to Reflection, Introd., Aphorism 23; Lightfoot, Gal., 351, note 2. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='025'/><anchor id='Pg025'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter II. Material of Theology.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Sources of Theology.</head> + +<p> +God himself, in the last analysis, must be the +only source of knowledge with regard to his own being and relations. +Theology is therefore a summary and explanation of the content of God's +self-revelations. These are, first, the revelation of God in nature; secondly +and supremely, the revelation of God in the Scriptures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ambrose: <q>To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?</q> +Von Baader: <q>To know God without God is impossible; there is no knowledge +without him who is the prime source of knowledge.</q> C. A. Briggs, Whither, 8—<q>God +reveals truth in several spheres: in universal nature, in the constitution of mankind, +in the history of our race, in the Sacred Scriptures, but above all in the person of Jesus +Christ our Lord.</q> F. H. Johnson, What is Reality? 399—<q>The teacher intervenes +when needed. Revelation <emph>helps</emph> reason and conscience, but is not a <emph>substitute</emph> for them. +But Catholicism affirms this substitution for the church, and Protestantism for the +Bible. The Bible, like nature, gives many free gifts, but more in the germ. Growing +ethical ideals must interpret the Bible.</q> A. J. F. Behrends: <q>The Bible is only a telescope, +not the eye which sees, nor the stars which the telescope brings to view. It is +your business and mine to see the stars with our own eyes.</q> Schurman, Agnosticism, +178—<q>The Bible is a glass through which to see the living God. But it is useless when +you put your eyes out.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We can know God only so far as he has revealed himself. The immanent God is +known, but the transcendent God we do not know any more than we know the side of +the moon that is turned away from us. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 118—<q>The +word <q>authority</q> is derived from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>auctor</foreign>, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>augeo</foreign>, <q>to add.</q> Authority adds something +to the truth communicated. The thing added is the personal element of <emph>witness</emph>. This +is needed wherever there is ignorance which cannot be removed by our own effort, or +unwillingness which results from our own sin. In religion I need to add to my own +knowledge that which God imparts. Reason, conscience, church, Scripture, are all +delegated and subordinate authorities; the only original and supreme authority is God +himself, or Christ, who is only God revealed and made comprehensible by us.</q> Gore, +Incarnation, 181—<q>All legitimate authority represents the reason of God, educating +the reason of man and communicating itself to it.... Man is made in God's image: +he is, in his fundamental capacity, a son of God, and he becomes so in fact, and fully, +through union with Christ. Therefore in the truth of God, as Christ presents it to him, +he can recognize his own better reason,—to use Plato's beautiful expression, he can +salute it by force of instinct as something akin to himself, before he can give intellectual +account of it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 332-337, holds that there is no such thing as unassisted +reason, and that, even if there were, natural religion is not one of its products. Behind +all evolution of our own reason, he says, stands the Supreme Reason. <q>Conscience, +ethical ideals, capacity for admiration, sympathy, repentance, righteous indignation, +as well as our delight in beauty and truth, are all derived from God.</q> Kaftan, in Am. +Jour. Theology, 1900; 718, 719, maintains that there is no other principle for dogmatics +than Holy Scripture. Yet he holds that knowledge never comes directly from +Scripture, but from faith. The order is not: Scripture, doctrine, faith; but rather, +Scripture, faith, doctrine. Scripture is no more a direct authority than is the church. +Revelation is addressed to the whole man, that is, to the <emph>will</emph> of the man, and it +claims <emph>obedience</emph> from him. Since all Christian knowledge is mediated through faith, +it rests on obedience to the authority of revelation, and revelation is self-manifestation +<pb n='026'/><anchor id='Pg026'/> +on the part of God. Kaftan should have recognized more fully that not simply +Scripture, but all knowable truth, is a revelation from God, and that Christ is <emph><q>the light +which lighteth every man</q> (John 1:9)</emph>. Revelation is an organic whole, which begins in nature, +but finds its climax and key in the historical Christ whom Scripture presents to us. +See H. C. Minton's review of Martineau's Seat of Authority, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., +Apr. 1900:203 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Scripture and Nature.</head> + +<p> +By nature we here mean not only physical +facts, or facts with regard to the substances, properties, forces, and laws +of the material world, but also spiritual facts, or facts with regard to the +intellectual and moral constitution of man, and the orderly arrangement of +human society and history. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We here use the word <q>nature</q> in the ordinary sense, as including man. There is +another and more proper use of the word <q>nature,</q> which makes it simply a complex +of forces and beings under the law of cause and effect. To nature in this sense man +belongs only as respects his body, while as immaterial and personal he is a supernatural +being. Free will is not under the law of physical and mechanical causation. As +Bushnell has said: <q>Nature and the supernatural together constitute the one system +of God.</q> Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 232—<q>Things are natural +or supernatural according to where we stand. Man is supernatural to the mineral; +God is supernatural to the man.</q> We shall in subsequent chapters use the term +<q>nature</q> in the narrow sense. The universal use of the phrase <q>Natural Theology,</q> +however, compels us in this chapter to employ the word <q>nature</q> in its broader sense +as including man, although we do this under protest, and with this explanation of the +more proper meaning of the term. See Hopkins, in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882:183 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson: <q>Bushnell separates nature from the supernatural. Nature is a +blind train of causes. God has nothing to do with it, except as he steps into it from +without. Man is supernatural, because he is outside of nature, having the power of +originating an independent train of causes.</q> If this were the proper conception of +nature, then we might be compelled to conclude with P. T. Forsyth, in Faith and +Criticism, 100—<q>There is no revelation in nature. There can be none, because there +is no forgiveness. We cannot be sure about her. She is only aesthetic. Her ideal is +harmony, not reconciliation.... For the conscience, stricken or strong, she has no +word.... Nature does not contain her own teleology, and for the moral soul that +refuses to be fancy-fed, Christ is the one luminous smile on the dark face of the world.</q> +But this is virtually to confine Christ's revelation to Scripture or to the incarnation. +As there was an astronomy without the telescope, so there was a theology before the +Bible. George Harris, Moral Evolution, 411—<q>Nature is both evolution and revelation. +As soon as the question <emph>How</emph> is answered, the questions <emph>Whence</emph> and <emph>Why</emph> arise. +Nature is to God what speech is to thought.</q> The title of Henry Drummond's book +should have been: <q>Spiritual Law in the Natural World,</q> for nature is but the free +though regular activity of God; what we call the supernatural is simply his extraordinary +working. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Natural theology.—The universe is a source of theology. The +Scriptures assert that God has revealed himself in nature. There is not +only an outward witness to his existence and character in the constitution +and government of the universe (Ps. 19; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:20), but an +inward witness to his existence and character in the heart of every man +(Rom. 1:17, 18, 19, 20, 32; 2:15). The systematic exhibition of these +facts, whether derived from observation, history or science, constitutes +natural theology. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Outward witness: <emph>Ps.19:1-6—<q>The heavens declare the glory of God</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 14:17—<q>he left not himself +without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:20—<q>for the +invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, +even his everlasting power and divinity.</q></emph> Inward witness: <emph>Rom. 1:19—τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ = <q>that +which is known of God is manifest in them.</q></emph> Compare the ἀποκαλύπτεται of the gospel in verse 17, +with the ἀποκαλύπτεται of wrath in verse 18—two revelations, one of ὀργή, the other of +χάρις; see Shedd, Homiletics, 11. <emph>Rom. 1:32—<q>knowing the ordinance of God</q></emph>; <emph>2:15—<q>they show the +<pb n='027'/><anchor id='Pg027'/> +work of the law written in their hearts.</q></emph> Therefore even the heathen are <emph><q>without excuse</q> (Rom. 1:20)</emph>. +There are two books: Nature and Scripture—one written, the other unwritten: and +there is need of studying both. On the passages in Romans, see the Commentary of +Hodge. +</p> + +<p> +Spurgeon told of a godly person who, when sailing down the Rhine, closed his eyes, +lest the beauty of the scene should divert his mind from spiritual themes. The Puritan +turned away from the moss-rose, saying that he would count nothing on earth lovely. +But this is to despise God's works. J. H. Barrows: <q>The Himalayas are the raised +letters upon which we blind children put our fingers to spell out the name of God.</q> +To despise the works of God is to despise God himself. God is present in nature, and +is now speaking. <emph>Ps. 19:1—<q>The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork</q></emph>—present +tenses. Nature is not so much a <emph>book</emph>, as a <emph>voice</emph>. Hutton, Essays, 2:236—<q>The +direct knowledge of spiritual communion must be supplemented by knowledge +of God's ways gained from the study of nature. To neglect the study of the natural +mysteries of the universe leads to an arrogant and illicit intrusion of moral and spiritual +assumptions into a different world. This is the lesson of the book of Job.</q> Hatch, +Hibbert Lectures, 85—<q>Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, is also, and is +thereby, the servant and interpreter of the living God.</q> Books of science are the +record of man's past interpretations of God's works. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Natural theology supplemented.—The Christian revelation is the +chief source of theology. The Scriptures plainly declare that the revelation +of God in nature does not supply all the knowledge which a sinner +needs (Acts 17:23; Eph. 3:9). This revelation is therefore supplemented +by another, in which divine attributes and merciful provisions only dimly +shadowed forth in nature are made known to men. This latter revelation +consists of a series of supernatural events and communications, the +record of which is presented in the Scriptures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Acts 17:23</emph>—Paul shows that, though the Athenians, in the erection of an altar to an +unknown God, <q>acknowledged a divine existence beyond any which the ordinary rites +of their worship recognized, that Being was still unknown to them; they had no just +conception of his nature and perfections</q> (Hackett, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). <emph>Eph. 3:9—<q>the mystery which +hath been hid in God</q></emph>—this mystery is in the gospel made known for man's salvation. +Hegel, in his Philosophy of Religion, says that Christianity is the only revealed religion, +because the Christian God is the only one from whom a revelation can come. We may +add that as science is the record of man's progressive interpretation of God's revelation +in the realm of nature, so Scripture is the record of man's progressive interpretation +of God's revelation in the realm of spirit. The phrase <emph><q>word of God</q></emph> does not primarily +denote a <emph>record</emph>,—it is the <emph>spoken</emph> word, the <emph>doctrine</emph>, the vitalizing <emph>truth</emph>, disclosed +by Christ; see <emph>Mat. 13:19—<q>heareth the word of the kingdom</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 5:1—<q>heard the word of God</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 8:25—<q>spoken +the word of the Lord</q></emph>; <emph>13:48, 49—<q>glorified the word of God: ... the word of the Lord was +spread abroad</q></emph>; <emph>19:10, 20—<q>heard the word of the Lord, ... mightily grew the word of the Lord</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. +1:18—<q>the word of the cross</q></emph>—all designating not a document, but an unwritten word; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> +Jer. 1:4—<q>the word of Jehovah came unto me</q></emph>; <emph>Ez. 1:3—<q>the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel, +the priest.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The Scriptures the final standard of appeal.—Science and Scripture +throw light upon each other. The same divine Spirit who gave both revelations +is still present, enabling the believer to interpret the one by the +other and thus progressively to come to the knowledge of the truth. +Because of our finiteness and sin, the total record in Scripture of God's past +communications is a more trustworthy source of theology than are our +conclusions from nature or our private impressions of the teaching of the +Spirit. Theology therefore looks to the Scripture itself as its chief source +of material and its final standard of appeal. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There is an internal work of the divine Spirit by which the outer word is made an +inner word, and its truth and power are manifested to the heart. Scripture represents +<pb n='028'/><anchor id='Pg028'/> +this work of the Spirit, not as a giving of new truth, but as an illumination of the mind +to perceive the fulness of meaning which lay wrapped up in the truth already revealed. +Christ is <emph><q>the truth</q> (John 14:6)</emph>; <emph><q>in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden</q> (Col. 2:3)</emph>; +the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, <emph><q>shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you</q> (John 16:14)</emph>. The +incarnation and the Cross express the heart of God and the secret of the universe; all +discoveries in theology are but the unfolding of truth involved in these facts. The +Spirit of Christ enables us to compare nature with Scripture, and Scripture with +nature, and to correct mistakes in interpreting the one by light gained from the other. +Because the church as a whole, by which we mean the company of true believers in all +lands and ages, has the promise that it shall be guided <emph><q>into all the truth</q> (John 16:13)</emph>, we +may confidently expect the progress of Christian doctrine. +</p> + +<p> +Christian experience is sometimes regarded as an original source of religious truth. +Experience, however, is but a testing and proving of the truth objectively contained +in God's revelation. The word <q>experience</q> is derived from <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>experior</foreign>, to test, to try. +Christian consciousness is not <q>norma normans,</q> but <q>norma normata.</q> Light, like +life, comes to us through the mediation of others. Yet the first comes from God as +really as the last, of which without hesitation we say: <q>God made me,</q> though we +have human parents. As I get through the service-pipe in my house the same water +which is stored in the reservoir upon the hillside, so in the Scriptures I get the same +truth which the Holy Spirit originally communicated to prophets and apostles. Calvin, +Institutes, book I, chap. 7—<q>As nature has an immediate manifestation of God in +conscience, a mediate in his works, so revelation has an immediate manifestation of God +in the Spirit, a mediate in the Scriptures.</q> <q>Man's nature,</q> said Spurgeon, <q>is not +an organized lie, yet his inner consciousness has been warped by sin, and though once +it was an infallible guide to truth and duty, sin has made it very deceptive. The +standard of infallibility is not in man's consciousness, but in the Scriptures. When +consciousness in any matter is contrary to the word of God, we must know that it is +not God's voice within us, but the devil's.</q> Dr. George A. Gordon says that <q>Christian +history is a revelation of Christ additional to that contained in the New Testament.</q> +Should we not say <q>illustrative,</q> instead of <q>additional</q>? On the relation between +Christian experience and Scripture, see Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 286-309: +Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:344-348; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:15. +</p> + +<p> +H. H. Bawden: <q>God is the ultimate authority, but there are delegated authorities, +such as family, state, church; instincts, feelings, conscience; the general experience of +the race, traditions, utilities; revelation in nature and in Scripture. But the highest +authority available for men in morals and religion is the truth concerning Christ contained +in the Christian Scriptures. What the truth concerning Christ <emph>is</emph>, is determined +by: (1) the human reason, conditioned by a right attitude of the feelings and the will; +(2) in the light of all the truth derived from nature, including man; (3) in the light of +the history of Christianity; (4) in the light of the origin and development of the +Scriptures themselves. The authority of the generic reason and the authority of +the Bible are co-relative, since they both have been developed in the providence of +God, and since the latter is in large measure but the reflection of the former. This +view enables us to hold a rational conception of the function of the Scripture in +religion. This view, further, enables us to rationalize what is called the inspiration of +the Bible, the nature and extent of inspiration, the Bible as history—a record of the +historic unfolding of revelation; the Bible as literature—a compend of life-principles, +rather than a book of rules; the Bible Christocentric—an incarnation of the +divine thought and will in human thought and language.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The theology of Scripture not unnatural.—Though we speak of +the systematized truths of nature as constituting natural theology, we are +not to infer that Scriptural theology is unnatural. Since the Scriptures +have the same author as nature, the same principles are illustrated in the +one as in the other. All the doctrines of the Bible have their reason in +that same nature of God which constitutes the basis of all material things. +Christianity is a supplementary dispensation, not as contradicting, or correcting +errors in, natural theology, but as more perfectly revealing the +truth. Christianity is indeed the ground-plan upon which the whole +creation is built—the original and eternal truth of which natural theology +<pb n='029'/><anchor id='Pg029'/> +is but a partial expression. Hence the theology of nature and the theology +of Scripture are mutually dependent. Natural theology not only prepares +the way for, but it receives stimulus and aid from, Scriptural +theology. Natural theology may now be a source of truth, which, before +the Scriptures came, it could not furnish. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity. 23—<q>There is no such thing as a natural +religion or religion of reason distinct from revealed religion. Christianity is more +profoundly, more comprehensively, rational, more accordant with the deepest principles +of human nature and human thought than is natural religion; or, as we may put +it, Christianity is natural religion elevated and transmuted into revealed.</q> Peabody, +Christianity the Religion of Nature, lecture 2—<q>Revelation is the unveiling, uncovering +of what previously existed, and it excludes the idea of newness, invention, creation.... +The revealed religion of earth is the natural religion of heaven.</q> Compare +<emph>Rev. 13:8—<q>the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world</q></emph> = the coming of Christ was +no make-shift; in a true sense the Cross existed in eternity; the atonement is a revelation +of an eternal fact in the being of God. +</p> + +<p> +Note Plato's illustration of the cave which can be easily threaded by one who has +previously entered it with a torch. Nature is the dim light from the cave's mouth; +the torch is Scripture. Kant to Jacobi, in Jacobi's Werke, 3:523—<q>If the gospel had +not previously taught the universal moral laws, reason would not yet have obtained +so perfect an insight into them.</q> Alexander McLaren: <q>Non-Christian thinkers now +talk eloquently about God's love, and even reject the gospel in the name of that love, +thus kicking down the ladder by which they have climbed. But it was the Cross that +taught the world the love of God, and apart from the death of Christ men may hope +that there is a heart at the centre of the universe, but they can never be sure of it.</q> +The parrot fancies that he taught men to talk. So Mr. Spencer fancies that he +invented ethics. He is only using the twilight, after his sun has gone down. Dorner, +Hist. Prot. Theol., 252, 253—<q>Faith, at the Reformation, first gave scientific certainty; +it had God sure: hence it proceeded to banish scepticism in philosophy and science.</q> +See also Dove, Logic of Christian Faith, 333; Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 442-463; +Bib. Sac., 1874:436; A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 226, 227. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Scripture and Rationalism.</head> + +<p> +Although the Scriptures make known +much that is beyond the power of man's unaided reason to discover or +fully to comprehend, their teachings, when taken together, in no way contradict +a reason conditioned in its activity by a holy affection and enlightened +by the Spirit of God. To reason in the large sense, as including the +mind's power of cognizing God and moral relations—not in the narrow +sense of mere reasoning, or the exercise of the purely logical faculty—the +Scriptures continually appeal. +</p> + +<p> +A. The proper office of reason, in this large sense, is: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) To furnish +us with those primary ideas of space, time, cause, substance, design, right, +and God, which are the conditions of all subsequent knowledge. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) To +judge with regard to man's need of a special and supernatural revelation. +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) To examine the credentials of communications professing to be, or of +documents professing to record, such a revelation. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) To estimate and +reduce to system the facts of revelation, when these have been found properly +attested. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) To deduce from these facts their natural and logical +conclusions. Thus reason itself prepares the way for a revelation above +reason, and warrants an implicit trust in such revelation when once given. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 318—<q>Reason terminates in the proposition: +Look for revelation.</q> Leibnitz: <q>Revelation is the viceroy who first presents his credentials +to the provincial assembly (reason), and then himself presides.</q> Reason can +recognize truth after it is made known, as for example in the demonstrations of geometry, +although it could never discover that truth for itself. See Calderwood's illustration +<pb n='030'/><anchor id='Pg030'/> +of the party lost in the woods, who wisely take the course indicated by one at the +tree-top with a larger view than their own (Philosophy of the Infinite, 126). The novice +does well to trust his guide in the forest, at least till he learns to recognise for himself +the marks blazed upon the trees. Luthardt, Fund. Truths, lect. viii—<q>Reason +could never have invented a self-humiliating God, cradled in a manger and dying on a +cross.</q> Lessing, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur, 6:134—<q>What is the meaning of a +revelation that reveals nothing?</q> +</p> + +<p> +Ritschl denies the presuppositions of any theology based on the Bible as the infallible +word of God on the one hand, and on the validity of the knowledge of God as +obtained by scientific and philosophic processes on the other. Because philosophers, +scientists, and even exegetes, are not agreed among themselves, he concludes that no +trustworthy results are attainable by human reason. We grant that reason without +love will fall into many errors with regard to God, and that faith is therefore the organ +by which religious truth is to be apprehended. But we claim that this faith includes +reason, and is itself reason in its highest form. Faith criticizes and judges the processes +of natural science as well as the contents of Scripture. But it also recognizes in +science and Scripture prior workings of that same Spirit of Christ which is the source +and authority of the Christian life. Ritschl ignores Christ's world-relations and therefore +secularizes and disparages science and philosophy. The faith to which he trusts as +the source of theology is unwarrantably sundered from reason. It becomes a subjective +and arbitrary standard, to which even the teaching of Scripture must yield precedence. +We hold on the contrary, that there are ascertained results in science and in +philosophy, as well as in the interpretation of Scripture as a whole, and that these +results constitute an authoritative revelation. See Orr, The Theology of Ritschl; Dorner, +Hist. Prot. Theol., 1:233—<q>The unreasonable in the empirical reason is taken +captive by faith, which is the nascent true reason that despairs of itself and trustfully +lays hold of objective Christianity.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Rationalism, on the other hand, holds reason to be the ultimate +source of all religious truth, while Scripture is authoritative only so far as its +revelations agree with previous conclusions of reason, or can be rationally +demonstrated. Every form of rationalism, therefore, commits at least one +of the following errors: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That of confounding reason with mere reasoning, +or the exercise of the logical intelligence. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That of ignoring +the necessity of a holy affection as the condition of all right reason in +religious things. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That of denying our dependence in our present state +of sin upon God's past revelations of himself. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) That of regarding the +unaided reason, even its normal and unbiased state, as capable of discovering, +comprehending, and demonstrating all religious truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Reason must not be confounded with ratiocination, or mere reasoning. Shall we follow +reason? Yes, but not individual reasoning, against the testimony of those who +are better informed than we; nor by insisting on demonstration, where probable evidence +alone is possible; nor by trusting solely to the evidence of the senses, when +spiritual things are in question. Coleridge, in replying to those who argued that all +knowledge comes to us from the senses, says: <q>At any rate we must bring to all facts +the light in which we see them.</q> This the Christian does. The light of love reveals +much that would otherwise be invisible. Wordsworth, Excursion, book 5 (598)—<q>The +mind's repose On evidence is not to be ensured By act of naked reason. Moral truth +Is no mechanic structure, built by rule.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Rationalism is the mathematical theory of knowledge. Spinoza's Ethics is an illustration +of it. It would deduce the universe from an axiom. Dr. Hodge very wrongly +described rationalism as <q>an overuse of reason.</q> It is rather the use of an abnormal, +perverted, improperly conditioned reason; see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:34, 39, 55, and +criticism by Miller, in his Fetich in Theology. The phrase <q>sanctified intellect</q> means +simply intellect accompanied by right affections toward God, and trained to work +under their influence. Bishop Butler: <q>Let reason be kept to, but let not such poor +creatures as we are go on objecting to an infinite scheme that we do not see the necessity +or usefulness of all its parts, and call that reasoning.</q> Newman Smyth, Death's +Place in Evolution, 86—<q>Unbelief is a shaft sunk down into the darkness of the earth. +<pb n='031'/><anchor id='Pg031'/> +Drive the shaft deep enough, and it would come out into the sunlight on the earth's +other side.</q> The most unreasonable people in the world are those who depend solely +upon reason, in the narrow sense. <q>The better to exalt reason, they make the world +irrational.</q> <q>The hen that has hatched ducklings walks with them to the water's edge, +but there she stops, and she is amazed when they go on. So reason stops and faith goes +on, finding its proper element in the invisible. Reason is the feet that stand on solid +earth; faith is the wings that enable us to fly; and normal man is a creature with +wings.</q> Compare γνῶσις (<emph>1 Tim. 6:20—<q>the knowledge which is falsely so called</q></emph>) with ἐπίγνωσις +(<emph>2 Pet. 1:2—<q>the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord</q></emph> = full knowledge, or true knowledge). +See Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:467-500; Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 4, 5; Mansel, Limits +of Religious Thought, 96; Dawson, Modern Ideas of Evolution. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Scripture and Mysticism.</head> + +<p> +As rationalism recognizes too little as +coming from God, so mysticism recognizes too much. +</p> + +<p> +A. True mysticism.—We have seen that there is an illumination of the +minds of all believers by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, however, makes no +new revelation of truth, but uses for his instrument the truth already +revealed by Christ in nature and in the Scriptures. The illuminating +work of the Spirit is therefore an opening of men's minds to understand +Christ's previous revelations. As one initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, +every true believer may be called a mystic. True mysticism is +that higher knowledge and fellowship which the Holy Spirit gives through +the use of nature and Scripture as subordinate and principal means. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>Mystic</q> = one initiated, from μύω, <q>to close the eyes</q>—probably in order that the +soul may have inward vision of truth. But divine truth is a <q>mystery,</q> not only as +something into which one must be initiated, but as ὑπερβάλλουσα τῆς γνώσεως (<emph>Eph. 3:19</emph>)—surpassing +full knowledge, even to the believer; see Meyer on <emph>Rom. 11:25—<q>I would not, +brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery.</q></emph> The Germans have <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Mystik</foreign> with a favorable sense, +<foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Mysticismus</foreign> with an unfavorable sense,—corresponding respectively to our true and +false mysticism. True mysticism is intimated in <emph>John 16:13—<q>the spirit of truth ... shall +guide you into all the truth</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 3:9—<q>dispensation of the mystery</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 2:10—<q>unto us God revealed +them through the Spirit.</q></emph> Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 35—<q>Whenever true religion +revives, there is an outcry against mysticism, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, higher knowledge, fellowship, activity +through the Spirit of God in the heart.</q> Compare the charge against Paul that he +was mad, in <emph>Acts 26:24, 25</emph>, with his self-vindication in <emph>2 Cor. 5:13—<q>whether we are beside ourselves, +it is unto God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Inge, Christian Mysticism, 21—<q>Harnack speaks of mysticism as rationalism applied +to a sphere above reason. He should have said reason applied to a sphere above rationalism. +Its fundamental doctrine is the unity of all existence. Man can realize his individuality +only by transcending it and finding himself in the larger unity of God's +being. Man is a microcosm. He recapitulates the race, the universe, Christ himself.</q> +<hi rend='italic'>Ibid.</hi>, 5—Mysticism is <q>the attempt to realize in thought and feeling the immanence of +the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal. It implies (1) that +the soul can see and perceive spiritual truth; (2) that man, in order to know God, must +be a partaker of the divine nature; (3) that without holiness no man can see the Lord; +(4) that the true hierophant of the mysteries of God is love. The <q>scala perfectionis</q> +is (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the purgative life; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the illuminative life; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the unitive life.</q> Stevens, +Johannine Theology, 239, 240—<q>The mysticism of John ... is not a subjective mysticism +which absorbs the soul in self-contemplation and revery, but an objective and +rational mysticism, which lives in a world of realities, apprehends divinely revealed +truth, and bases its experience upon it. It is a mysticism which feeds, not upon its own +feelings and fancies, but upon Christ. It involves an acceptance of him, and a life of +obedience to him. Its motto is: Abiding in Christ.</q> As the power press cannot dispense +with the type, so the Spirit of God does not dispense with Christ's external revelations +in nature and in Scripture. E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 364—<q>The word +of God is a form or mould, into which the Holy Spirit delivers us when he creates us +anew</q>; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Rom. 6:17—<q>ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were +delivered.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='032'/><anchor id='Pg032'/> + +<p> +B. False mysticism.—Mysticism, however, as the term is commonly +used, errs in holding to the attainment of religious knowledge by direct +communication from God, and by passive absorption of the human activities +into the divine. It either partially or wholly loses sight of (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the outward +organs of revelation, nature and the Scriptures; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the activity of +the human powers in the reception of all religious knowledge; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the +personality of man, and, by consequence, the personality of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In opposition to false mysticism, we are to remember that the Holy Spirit works +through the truth externally revealed in nature and in Scripture (<emph>Acts 14:17—<q>he left +not himself without witness</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:20—<q>the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly +seen</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 7:51—<q>ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 6:17—<q>the +sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God</q></emph>). By this truth already given we are to test all new +communications which would contradict or supersede it (<emph>1 John 4:1—<q>believe not every +spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 5:10—<q>proving what is well pleasing unto the Lord</q></emph>). +By these tests we may try Spiritualism, Mormonism, Swedenborgianism. Note the +mystical tendency in Francis de Sales, Thomas à Kempis, Madame Guyon, Thomas C. +Upham. These writers seem at times to advocate an unwarrantable abnegation of our +reason and will, and a <q>swallowing up of man in God.</q> But Christ does not deprive us +of reason and will; he only takes from us the perverseness of our reason and the selfishness +of our will; so reason and will are restored to their normal clearness and +strength. Compare <emph>Ps. 16:7—<q>Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; yea, my heart instructeth me in the +night seasons</q></emph>—God teaches his people through the exercise of their own faculties. +</p> + +<p> +False mysticism is sometimes present though unrecognized. All expectation of +results without the use of means partakes of it. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 288—<q>The +lazy will would like to have the vision while the eye that apprehends it sleeps.</q> +Preaching without preparation is like throwing ourselves down from a pinnacle of the +temple and depending on God to send an angel to hold us up. Christian Science would +trust to supernatural agencies, while casting aside the natural agencies God has +already provided; as if a drowning man should trust to prayer while refusing to seize +the rope. Using Scripture <q>ad aperturam libri</q> is like guiding one's actions by a +throw of the dice. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 171, note—<q>Both Charles and John +Wesley were agreed in accepting the Moravian method of solving doubts as to some +course of action by opening the Bible at hazard and regarding the passage on which +the eye first alighted as a revelation of God's will in the matter</q>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Wedgwood, Life +of Wesley, 193; Southey, Life of Wesley, 1:216. J. G. Paton, Life, 2:74—<q>After many +prayers and wrestlings and tears, I went alone before the Lord, and on my knees cast +lots, with a solemn appeal to God, and the answer came: <q>Go home!</q></q> He did this +only once in his life, in overwhelming perplexity, and finding no light from human +counsel. <q>To whomsoever this faith is given,</q> he says, <q>let him obey it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +F. B. Meyer, Christian Living, 18—<q>It is a mistake to seek a sign from heaven; to +run from counsellor to counsellor; to cast a lot; or to trust in some chance coincidence. +Not that God may not reveal his will thus; but because it is hardly the behavior +of a child with its Father. There is a more excellent way,</q>—namely, appropriate +Christ who is wisdom, and then go forward, sure that we shall be guided, as each new +step must be taken, or word spoken, or decision made. Our service is to be <emph><q>rational service</q> +(Rom. 12:1)</emph>; blind and arbitrary action is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. +Such action makes us victims of temporary feeling and a prey to Satanic deception. +In cases of perplexity, waiting for light and waiting upon God will commonly +enable us to make an intelligent decision, while <emph><q>whatsoever is not of faith is sin</q> (Rom. 14:23)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +<q>False mysticism reached its logical result in the Buddhistic theosophy. In that system +man becomes most divine in the extinction of his own personality. Nirvana is +reached by the eightfold path of right view, aspiration, speech, conduct, livelihood, +effort, mindfulness, rapture; and Nirvana is the loss of ability to say: <q>This is I,</q> and +<q>This is mine.</q> Such was Hypatia's attempt, by subjection of self, to be wafted away +into the arms of Jove. George Eliot was wrong when she said: <q>The happiest woman +has no history.</q> Self-denial is not self-effacement. The cracked bell has no individuality. +In Christ we become our complete selves.</q> <emph>Col 2:9, 10—<q>For in him dwelleth all the fulness +of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, World and Individual, 2:248, 249—<q>Assert the spiritual man; abnegate the +natural man. The fleshly self is the root of all evil; the spiritual self belongs to a +<pb n='033'/><anchor id='Pg033'/> +higher realm. But this spiritual self lies at first outside the soul; it becomes ours only +by grace. Plato rightly made the eternal Ideas the source of all human truth and +goodness. Wisdom comes into a man, like Aristotle's νοῦς.</q> A. H. Bradford, The +Inner Light, in making the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit the sufficient if not the +sole source of religious knowledge, seems to us to ignore the principle of evolution in +religion. God builds upon the past. His revelation to prophets and apostles constitutes +the norm and corrective of our individual experience, even while our experience +throws new light upon that revelation. On Mysticism, true and false, see Inge, Christian +Mysticism, 4, 5, 11; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 289-294; Dorner, +Geschichte d. prot. Theol., 48-59, 243; Herzog, Encycl., art.: Mystik, by Lange; Vaughan, +Hours with the Mystics, 1:199; Morell, Hist. Philos., 58, 191-215, 556-625, 726; Hodge, +Syst. Theol., 1:61-69, 97, 104; Fleming, Vocab. Philos., <hi rend='italic'>in voce</hi>; Tholuck, Introd. to +Blüthensammlung aus der morgenländischen Mystik; William James, Varieties of +Religious Experience, 379-429. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. Scripture and Romanism.</head> + +<p> +While the history of doctrine, as showing +the progressive apprehension and unfolding by the church of the truth +contained in nature and Scripture, is a subordinate source of theology, +Protestantism recognizes the Bible as under Christ the primary and final +authority. +</p> + +<p> +Romanism, on the other hand, commits the two-fold error (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Of making +the church, and not the Scriptures, the immediate and sufficient source of +religious knowledge; and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Of making the relation of the individual to +Christ depend upon his relation to the church, instead of making his relation +to the church depend upon, follow, and express his relation to Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In Roman Catholicism there is a mystical element. The Scriptures are not the complete +or final standard of belief and practice. God gives to the world from time to +time, through popes and councils, new communications of truth. Cyprian: <q>He who +has not the church for his mother, has not God for his Father.</q> Augustine: <q>I would +not believe the Scripture, unless the authority of the church also influenced me.</q> +Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola both represented the truly obedient person as +one dead, moving only as moved by his superior; the true Christian has no life of his +own, but is the blind instrument of the church. John Henry Newman, Tracts, Theol. +and Eccl., 287—<q>The Christian dogmas were in the church from the time of the +apostles,—they were ever in their substance what they are now.</q> But this is demonstrably +untrue of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary; of the treasury of +merits to be distributed in indulgences; of the infallibility of the pope (see Gore, +Incarnation, 186). In place of the true doctrine, <q>Ubi Spiritus, ibi ecclesia,</q> Romanism +substitutes her maxim, <q>Ubi ecclesia, ibi Spiritus.</q> Luther saw in this the principle +of mysticism, when he said: <q>Papatus est merus enthusiasmus.</q> See Hodge, +Syst. Theol., 1:61-69. +</p> + +<p> +In reply to the Romanist argument that the church was before the Bible, and that +the same body that gave the truth at the first can make additions to that truth, we say +that the unwritten word was before the church and made the church possible. The +word of God existed before it was written down, and by that word the first disciples as +well as the latest were begotten (<emph>1 Pet. 1:23—<q>begotten again ... through the word of God</q></emph>). +The grain of truth in Roman Catholic doctrine is expressed in <emph>1 Tim. 3:15—<q>the church of +the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth</q></emph> = the church is God's appointed proclaimer of +truth; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Phil. 2:16—<q>holding forth the word of life.</q></emph> But the church can proclaim the truth, +only as it is built upon the truth. So we may say that the American Republic is the +pillar and ground of liberty in the world; but this is true only so far as the Republic is +built upon the principle of liberty as its foundation. When the Romanist asks: <q>Where +was your church before Luther?</q> the Protestant may reply: <q>Where yours is not now—in +the word of God. Where was your face before it was washed? Where was the +fine flour before the wheat went to the mill?</q> Lady Jane Grey, three days before her +execution, February 12, 1554, said: <q>I ground my faith on God's word, and not upon +the church; for, if the church be a good church, the faith of the church must be tried +by God's word, and not God's word by the church, nor yet my faith.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Roman church would keep men in perpetual childhood—coming to her for truth +<pb n='034'/><anchor id='Pg034'/> +instead of going directly to the Bible; <q>like the foolish mother who keeps her boy pining +in the house lest he stub his toe, and would love best to have him remain a babe forever, +that she might mother him still.</q> Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 30—<q>Romanism +is so busy in building up a system of guarantees, that she forgets the truth of Christ +which she would guarantee.</q> George Herbert: <q>What wretchedness can give him any +room, Whose house is foul while he adores his broom!</q> It is a semi-parasitic doctrine +of safety without intelligence or spirituality. Romanism says: <q>Man for the machine!</q> +Protestantism: <q>The machine for man!</q> Catholicism strangles, Protestantism restores, +individuality. Yet the Romanist principle sometimes appears in so-called Protestant +churches. The Catechism published by the League of the Holy Cross, in the Anglican +Church, contains the following: <q>It is to the priest only that the child must acknowledge +his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him. Do you know why? It is +because God, when on earth, gave to his priests and to them alone the power of forgiving +sins. Go to the priest, who is the doctor of your soul, and who cures you in the +name of God.</q> But this contradicts <emph>John 10:7</emph>—where Christ says <emph><q>I am the door</q></emph>; and +<emph>1 Cor. 3:11—<q>other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ</q></emph> = Salvation is +attained by immediate access to Christ, and there is no door between the soul and +him. See Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 227; Schleiermacher, Glaubenslehre, 1:24; Robinson, +in Mad. Av. Lectures, 387; Fisher, Nat. and Method of Revelation, 10; Watkins, +Bampton Lect. for 1890:149; Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. World, 327. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Limitations of Theology.</head> + +<p> +Although theology derives its material +from God's two-fold revelation, it does not profess to give an exhaustive +knowledge of God and of the relations between God and the universe. +After showing what material we have, we must show what material we have +not. We have indicated the sources of theology; we now examine its limitations. +Theology has its limitations: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the finiteness of the human understanding.</hi> This gives rise +to a class of necessary mysteries, or mysteries connected with the infinity +and incomprehensibleness of the divine nature (Job 11:7; Rom. 11:33). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Job 11:7—<q>Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?</q></emph> <emph>Rom. 11:33—<q>how +unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!</q></emph> Every doctrine, therefore, +has its inexplicable side. Here is the proper meaning of Tertullian's sayings: <q>Certum +est, quia impossible est: quo absurdius, eo verius</q>; that of Anselm: <q>Credo, +ut intelligam</q>; and that of Abelard: <q>Qui credit cito, levis corde est.</q> Drummond, +Nat. Law in Spir. World: <q>A science without mystery is unknown; a religion without +mystery is absurd.</q> E. G. Robinson: <q>A finite being cannot grasp even its own relations +to the Infinite.</q> Hovey, Manual of Christ. Theol., 7—<q>To infer from the perfection +of God that all his works [nature, man, inspiration] will be absolutely and +unchangeably perfect: to infer from the perfect love of God that there can be no sin +or suffering in the world; to infer from the sovereignty of God that man is not a free +moral agent;—all these inferences are rash; they are inferences from the cause to the +effect, while the cause is imperfectly known.</q> See Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, +491; Sir Wm. Hamilton, Discussions, 22. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the imperfect state of science, both natural and metaphysical.</hi> +This gives rise to a class of accidental mysteries, or mysteries which +consist in the apparently irreconcilable nature of truths, which, taken +separately, are perfectly comprehensible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We are the victims of a mental or moral astigmatism, which sees a <emph>single</emph> point of +truth as <emph>two</emph>. We see God and man, divine sovereignty and human freedom, Christ's +divine nature and Christ's human nature, the natural and the supernatural, respectively, +as two disconnected facts, when perhaps deeper insight would see but one. +Astronomy has its centripetal and centrifugal forces, yet they are doubtless one force. +The child cannot hold two oranges at once in its little hand. Negro preacher: <q>You +can't carry two watermelons under one arm.</q> Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, +1:2—<q>In nature's infinite book of secresy, A little I can read.</q> Cooke, Credentials of +Science, 34—<q>Man's progress in knowledge has been so constantly and rapidly accelerated +that more has been gained during the lifetime of men still living than during all +<pb n='035'/><anchor id='Pg035'/> +human history before.</q> And yet we may say with D'Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 248—<q>Man's +position in the universe is eccentric. God alone is at the centre. To him +alone is the orbit of truth completely displayed.... There are circumstances in +which to us the onward movement of truth may seem a retrogression.</q> William Watson, +Collected Poems, 271—<q>Think not thy wisdom can illume away The ancient tanglement +of night and day. Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere: They see +not clearliest who see all things clear.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the inadequacy of language.</hi> Since language is the medium +through which truth is expressed and formulated, the invention of a proper +terminology in theology, as in every other science, is a condition and +criterion of its progress. The Scriptures recognize a peculiar difficulty in +putting spiritual truths into earthly language (1 Cor. 2:13; 2 Cor. 3:6; +12:4). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>1 Cor. 2:13—<q>not in words which man's wisdom teacheth</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 3:6—<q>the letter killeth</q></emph>; <emph>12:4—<q>unspeakable +words.</q></emph> God submits to conditions of revelation; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> John 16:12—<q>I have yet +many things to say into you, but ye cannot bear them now.</q></emph> Language has to be created. Words +have to be taken from a common, and to be put to a larger and more sacred, use, so +that they <q>stagger under their weight of meaning</q>—<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, the word <emph><q>day,</q></emph> in <emph>Genesis 1</emph>, +and the word ἀγάπη in <emph>1 Cor. 13</emph>. See Gould, in Amer. Com., on <emph>1 Cor. 13:12—<q>now we see in +a mirror, darkly</q></emph>—in a metallic mirror whose surface is dim and whose images are +obscure = Now we behold Christ, the truth, only as he is reflected in imperfect speech—<emph><q>but +then face to face</q></emph> = immediately, without the intervention of an imperfect +medium. <q>As fast as we tunnel into the sandbank of thought, the stones of language +must be built into walls and arches, to allow further progress into the boundless mine.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the incompleteness of our knowledge of the Scriptures.</hi> +Since it is not the mere letter of the Scriptures that constitutes the truth, +the progress of theology is dependent upon hermeneutics, or the interpretation +of the word of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice the progress in commenting, from homiletical to grammatical, historical, dogmatic, +illustrated in Scott, Ellicott, Stanley, Lightfoot. John Robinson: <q>I am verily +persuaded that the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth from his holy word.</q> +Recent criticism has shown the necessity of studying each portion of Scripture in the +light of its origin and connections. There has been an evolution of Scripture, as truly +as there has been an evolution of natural science, and the Spirit of Christ who was in +the prophets has brought about a progress from germinal and typical expression to +expression that is complete and clear. Yet we still need to offer the prayer of <emph>Ps. 119:18—<q>Open +thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.</q></emph> On New Testament Interpretation, +see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 334-336. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the silence of written revelation.</hi> For our discipline and probation, +much is probably hidden from us, which we might even with our +present powers comprehend. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instance the silence of Scripture with regard to the life and death of Mary the Virgin, +the personal appearance of Jesus and his occupations in early life, the origin of +evil, the method of the atonement, the state after death. So also as to social and political +questions, such as slavery, the liquor traffic, domestic virtues, governmental corruption. +<q>Jesus was in heaven at the revolt of the angels, yet he tells us little about +angels or about heaven. He does not discourse about Eden, or Adam, or the fall of +man, or death as the result of Adam's sin; and he says little of departed spirits, whether +they are lost or saved.</q> It was better to inculcate principles, and trust his followers +to apply them. His gospel is not intended to gratify a vain curiosity. He would +not divert men's minds from pursuing the one thing needful; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Luke 13:23, 24—<q>Lord, +are they few that are saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in by the narrow door; for many, I say unto you, +shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.</q></emph> Paul's silence upon speculative questions which he +must have pondered with absorbing interest is a proof of his divine inspiration. John +Foster spent his life, <q>gathering questions for eternity</q>; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> John 13:7—<q>What I do thou +knowest not now; but thou shalt understand hereafter.</q></emph> The most beautiful thing in a countenance +<pb n='036'/><anchor id='Pg036'/> +is that which a picture can never express. He who would speak well must omit well. +Story: <q>Of every noble work the silent part is best; Of all expressions that which cannot +be expressed.</q> <emph><hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> 1 Cor. 2:9—<q>Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not +into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him</q></emph>; <emph>Deut 29:29—<q>The secret things +belong unto Jehovah our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children.</q></emph> For Luther's +view, see Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 2:388. See also B. D. Thomas, The Secret of the +Divine Silence. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>In the lack of spiritual discernment caused by sin.</hi> Since holy +affection is a condition of religious knowledge, all moral imperfection in +the individual Christian and in the church serves as a hindrance to the +working out of a complete theology. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 3:3—<q>Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.</q></emph> The spiritual ages make +most progress in theology,—witness the half-century succeeding the Reformation, +and the half-century succeeding the great revival in New England in the time of Jonathan +Edwards. Ueberweg, Logic (Lindsay's transl.), 514—<q>Science is much under +the influence of the will; and the truth of knowledge depends upon the purity of the +conscience. The will has no power to resist scientific evidence; but scientific evidence +is not obtained without the continuous loyalty of the will.</q> Lord Bacon declared +that man cannot enter the kingdom of science, any more than he can enter the kingdom +of heaven, without becoming a little child. Darwin describes his own mind as +having become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections +of facts, with the result of producing <q>atrophy of that part of the brain on which the +higher tastes depend.</q> But a similar abnormal atrophy is possible in the case of the +moral and religious faculty (see Gore, Incarnation, 37). Dr. Allen said in his Introductory +Lecture at Lane Theological Seminary: <q>We are very glad to see you if you wish +to be students; but the professors' chairs are all filled.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Relations of Material to Progress in Theology.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>A perfect system of theology is impossible.</hi> We do not expect to +construct such a system. All science but reflects the present attainment +of the human mind. No science is complete or finished. However it +may be with the sciences of nature and of man, the science of God will +never amount to an exhaustive knowledge. We must not expect to demonstrate +all Scripture doctrines upon rational grounds, or even in every +case to see the principle of connection between them. Where we cannot +do this, we must, as in every other science, set the revealed facts in their +places and wait for further light, instead of ignoring or rejecting any of +them because we cannot understand them or their relation to other parts +of our system. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Three problems left unsolved by the Egyptians have been handed down to our generation: +(1) the duplication of the cube; (2) the trisection of the angle; (3) the +quadrature of the circle. Dr. Johnson: <q>Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is +better than none; and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.</q> Hood spoke of +Dr. Johnson's <q>Contradictionary,</q> which had both <q>interiour</q> and <q>exterior.</q> Sir +William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) at the fiftieth anniversary of his professorship +said: <q>One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement +of science which I have made perseveringly through fifty-five years: that word is +<emph>failure</emph>; I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relations between +ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and +tried to teach my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my first session as +professor.</q> Allen, Religious Progress, mentions three tendencies. <q>The first says: +Destroy the new! The second says: Destroy the old! The third says: Destroy nothing! +Let the old gradually and quietly grow into the new, as Erasmus wished. We +should accept contradictions, whether they can be intellectually reconciled or not. +The truth has never prospered by enforcing some 'via media.' Truth lies rather in +the union of opposite propositions, as in Christ's divinity and humanity, and in grace +<pb n='037'/><anchor id='Pg037'/> +and freedom. Blanco White went from Rome to infidelity; Orestes Brownson from +infidelity to Rome; so the brothers John Henry Newman and Francis W. Newman, +and the brothers George Herbert of Bemerton and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. One +would secularize the divine, the other would divinize the secular. But if one is true, +so is the other. Let us adopt both. All progress is a deeper penetration into the +meaning of old truth, and a larger appropriation of it.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Theology is nevertheless progressive.</hi> It is progressive in the +sense that our subjective understanding of the facts with regard to God, +and our consequent expositions of these facts, may and do become more +perfect. But theology is not progressive in the sense that its objective +facts change, either in their number or their nature. With Martineau we +may say: <q>Religion has been reproached with not being progressive; it +makes amends by being imperishable.</q> Though our knowledge may be +imperfect, it will have great value still. Our success in constructing a +theology will depend upon the proportion which clearly expressed facts of +Scripture bear to mere inferences, and upon the degree in which they all +cohere about Christ, the central person and theme. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The progress of theology is progress in apprehension by man, not progress in communication +by God. Originality in astronomy is not man's creation of new planets, +but man's discovery of planets that were never seen before, or the bringing to light +of relations between them that were never before suspected. Robert Kerr Eccles: +<q>Originality is a habit of recurring to origins—the habit of securing personal experience +by personal application to original facts. It is not an eduction of novelties +either from nature, Scripture, or inner consciousness; it is rather the habit of resorting +to primitive facts, and of securing the personal experiences which arise from contact +with these facts.</q> Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, 48—<q>The starry heavens are +now what they were of old; there is no enlargement of the stellar universe, except +that which comes through the increased power and use of the telescope.</q> We must +not imitate the green sailor who, when set to steer, said he had <q>sailed <emph>by</emph> that star.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Martineau, Types, 1:492, 493—<q>Metaphysics, so far as they are true to their work, +are stationary, precisely because they have in charge, not what begins and ceases to +be, but what always <emph>is</emph>.... It is absurd to praise motion for always making way, +while disparaging space for still being what it ever was: as if the motion you prefer +could be, without the space which you reproach.</q> Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, +45, 67-70, 79—<q>True conservatism is progress which takes direction from the past and +fulfils its good; false conservatism is a narrowing and hopeless reversion to the past, +which is a betrayal of the promise of the future. So Jesus came not <emph><q>to destroy the law or +the prophets</q></emph>; he <emph><q>came not to destroy, but to fulfil</q> (Mat. 5:17)</emph>.... The last book on Christian +Ethics will not be written before the Judgment Day.</q> John Milton, Areopagitica: +<q>Truth is compared in the Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not +in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. +A man may be a heretic in the truth.</q> Paul in <emph>Rom. 2:16</emph>, and in <emph>2 Tim. 2:8</emph>—speaks +of <emph><q>my gospel.</q></emph> It is the duty of every Christian to have his own conception of +the truth, while he respects the conceptions of others. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: <q>I +that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand +at gaze like Joshua's moon at Ajalon.</q> We do not expect any new worlds, and we +need not expect any new Scriptures; but we may expect progress in the interpretation +of both. Facts are final, but interpretation is not. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='038'/><anchor id='Pg038'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter III. Method Of Theology.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Requisites to the study of Theology.</head> + +<p> +The requisites to the successful study +of theology have already in part been indicated in speaking of its limitations. +In spite of some repetition, however, we mention the following: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>A disciplined mind.</hi> Only such a mind can patiently collect the +facts, hold in its grasp many facts at once, educe by continuous reflection +their connecting principles, suspend final judgment until its conclusions +are verified by Scripture and experience. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Robert Browning, Ring and Book, 175 (Pope, 228)—<q>Truth nowhere lies, yet everywhere, +in these; Not absolutely in a portion, yet Evolveable from the whole: evolved +at last Painfully, held tenaciously by me.</q> Teachers and students may be divided +into two classes: (1) those who know enough already; (2) those wish to learn more +than they now know. Motto of Winchester School in England: <q>Disce, aut discede.</q> +Butcher, Greek Genius, 213, 230—<q>The Sophists fancied that they were imparting education, +when they were only imparting results. Aristotle illustrates their method by +the example of a shoemaker who, professing to teach the art of making painless shoes, +puts into the apprentice's hand a large assortment of shoes ready-made. A witty +Frenchman classes together those who would make science popular, metaphysics +intelligible, and vice respectable. The word σχόλη, which first meant <q>leisure,</q> +then <q>philosophical discussion,</q> and finally <q>school,</q> shows the pure love of learning +among the Greeks.</q> Robert G. Ingersoll said that the average provincial clergyman +is like the land of the upper Potomac spoken of by Tom Randolph, as almost worthless +in its original state, and rendered wholly so by cultivation. Lotze, Metaphysics, 1:16—<q>the +constant whetting of the knife is tedious, if it is not proposed to cut anything +with it.</q> <q>To do their duty is their only holiday,</q> is the description of Athenian +character given by Thucydides. Chitty asked a father inquiring as to his son's qualifications +for the law: <q>Can your son eat sawdust without any butter?</q> On opportunities +for culture in the Christian ministry, see New Englander, Oct. 1875:644; A. H. +Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 273-275; Christ in Creation, 318-320. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>An intuitional as distinguished from a merely logical habit of +mind</hi>,—or, trust in the mind's primitive convictions, as well as in its +processes of reasoning. The theologian must have insight as well as understanding. +He must accustom himself to ponder spiritual facts as well as +those which are sensible and material; to see things in their inner relations +as well as in their outward forms; to cherish confidence in the reality and +the unity of truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Vinet, Outlines of Philosophy, 39, 40—<q>If I do not feel that good is good, who will +ever prove it to me?</q> Pascal: <q>Logic, which is an abstraction, may shake everything. +A being purely intellectual will be incurably sceptical.</q> Calvin: <q>Satan is an acute +theologian.</q> Some men can see a fly on a barn door a mile away, and yet can never +see the door. Zeller, Outlines of Greek Philosophy, 93—<q>Gorgias the Sophist was +able to show metaphysically that nothing can exist; that what does exist cannot be +known by us; and that what is known by us cannot be imparted to others</q> (quoted +by Wenley, Socrates and Christ, 28). Aristotle differed from those moderate men who +<pb n='039'/><anchor id='Pg039'/> +thought it impossible to go over the same river twice,—he held that it could not be +done even once (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Wordsworth, Prelude, 536). Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, +1-29, and especially 25, gives a demonstration of the impossibility of motion: A thing +cannot move in the place where it is; it cannot move in the places where it is not; +but the place where it is and the places where it is not are all the places that there +are; therefore a thing cannot move at all. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 109, +shows that the bottom of a wheel does not move, since it goes backward as fast as the +top goes forward. An instantaneous photograph makes the upper part a confused +blur, while the spokes of the lower part are distinctly visible. Abp. Whately: <q>Weak +arguments are often thrust before my path; but, although they are most unsubstantial, +it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to +cut through a cushion with a sword.</q> <emph><hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> 1 Tim. 6:20—<q>oppositions of the knowledge which is +falsely so called</q></emph>; <emph>3:2—<q>the bishop therefore must be ... sober-minded</q></emph>—σώφρων = <q>well balanced.</q> +The Scripture speaks of <emph><q>sound [ὑγιής = healthful] doctrine</q> (1 Tim. 1:10)</emph>. Contrast +<emph>1 Tim. 6:4—[νοσῶν = ailing] <q>diseased about questionings and disputes of words.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>An acquaintance with physical, mental, and moral science.</hi> +The method of conceiving and expressing Scripture truth is so affected by +our elementary notions of these sciences, and the weapons with which +theology is attacked and defended are so commonly drawn from them as +arsenals, that the student cannot afford to be ignorant of them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Goethe explains his own greatness by his avoidance of metaphysics: <q>Mein Kind, +Ich habe es klug gemacht: Ich habe nie über's Denken gedacht</q>—<q>I have been +wise in never thinking about thinking</q>; he would have been wiser, had he pondered +more deeply the fundamental principles of his philosophy; see A. H. Strong, The +Great Poets and their Theology, 296-299, and Philosophy and Religion, 1-18; also in Baptist +Quarterly, 2:393 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> Many a theological system has fallen, like the Campanile at +Venice, because its foundations were insecure. Sir William Hamilton: <q>No difficulty +arises in theology which has not first emerged in philosophy.</q> N. W. Taylor: +<q>Give me a young man in metaphysics, and I care not who has him in theology.</q> +President Samson Talbot: <q>I love metaphysics, because they have to do with realities.</q> +The maxim <q>Ubi tres medici, ibi duo athei,</q> witnesses to the truth of Galen's +words: ἄριστος ἰατρὸς καὶ φιλόσοφος—<q>the best physician is also a philosopher.</q> Theology +cannot dispense with science, any more than science can dispense with philosophy. +E. G. Robinson: <q>Science has not invalidated any fundamental truth of revelation, +though it has modified the statement of many.... Physical Science will undoubtedly +knock some of our crockery gods on the head, and the sooner the better.</q> There is +great advantage to the preacher in taking up, as did Frederick W. Robertson, one +science after another. Chemistry entered into his mental structure, as he said, <q>like +iron into the blood.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>A knowledge of the original languages of the Bible.</hi> This is +necessary to enable us not only to determine the meaning of the fundamental +terms of Scripture, such as holiness, sin, propitiation, justification, +but also to interpret statements of doctrine by their connections with the +context. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Emerson said that the man who reads a book in a strange tongue, when he can have +a good translation, is a fool. Dr. Behrends replied that he is a fool who is satisfied with +the substitute. E. G. Robinson: <q>Language is a great organism, and no study so disciplines +the mind as the dissection of an organism.</q> Chrysostom: <q>This is the cause +of all our evils—our not knowing the Scriptures.</q> Yet a modern scholar has said: +<q>The Bible is the most dangerous of all God's gifts to men.</q> It is possible to adore the +letter, while we fail to perceive its spirit. A narrow interpretation may contradict its +meaning. Much depends upon connecting phrases, as for example, the διὰ τοῦτο and ἐφ᾽ ᾧ, +in <emph>Rom. 5:12</emph>. Professor Philip Lindsley of Princeton, 1813-1853, said to his pupils: +<q>One of the best preparations for death is a thorough knowledge of the Greek grammar.</q> +The youthful Erasmus: <q>When I get some money, I will get me some Greek +books, and, after that, some clothes.</q> The dead languages are the only really living +ones—free from danger of misunderstanding from changing usage. Divine Providence +<pb n='040'/><anchor id='Pg040'/> +has put revelation into fixed forms in the Hebrew and the Greek. Sir William +Hamilton, Discussions, 330—<q>To be a competent divine is in fact to be a scholar.</q> +On the true idea of a Theological Seminary Course, see A. H. Strong, Philos. and Religion, +302-313. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>A holy affection toward God.</hi> Only the renewed heart can properly +feel its need of divine revelation, or understand that revelation when +given. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 25:14—<q>The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear him</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 12:2—<q>prove what is the ... +will of God</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Ps. 36:1—<q>the transgression of the wicked speaks in his heart like an oracle.</q></emph> <q>It is the +heart and not the brain That to the highest doth attain.</q> To <q>learn by heart</q> is something +more than to learn by mind, or by head. All heterodoxy is preceded by heteropraxy. +In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Faithful does not go through the Slough of +Despond, as Christian did; and it is by getting over the fence to find an easier road, that +Christian and Hopeful get into Doubting Castle and the hands of Giant Despair. +<q>Great thoughts come from the heart,</q> said Vauvenargues. The preacher cannot, +like Dr. Kane, kindle fire with a lens of ice. Aristotle: <q>The power of attaining +moral truth is dependent upon our acting rightly.</q> Pascal: <q>We know truth, not +only by the reason, but by the heart.... The heart has its reasons, which the reason +knows nothing of.</q> Hobbes: <q>Even the axioms of geometry would be disputed, if +men's passions were concerned in them.</q> Macaulay: <q>The law of gravitation would +still be controverted, if it interfered with vested interests.</q> Nordau, Degeneracy: +<q>Philosophic systems simply furnish the excuses reason demands for the unconscious +impulses of the race during a given period of time.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Lord Bacon: <q>A tortoise on the right path will beat a racer on the wrong path.</q> +Goethe: <q>As are the inclinations, so also are the opinions.... A work of art can be +comprehended by the head only with the assistance of the heart.... Only law can +give us liberty.</q> Fichte: <q>Our system of thought is very often only the history of +our heart.... Truth is descended from conscience.... Men do not will according to +their reason, but they reason according to their will.</q> Neander's motto was: <q>Pectus +est quod theologum facit</q>—<q>It is the heart that makes the theologian.</q> John +Stirling: <q>That is a dreadful eye which can be divided from a living human heavenly +heart, and still retain its all-penetrating vision,—such was the eye of the Gorgons.</q> +But such an eye, we add, is not all-penetrating. E. G. Robinson: <q>Never study theology +in cold blood.</q> W. C. Wilkinson: <q>The head is a magnetic needle with truth for +its pole. But the heart is a hidden mass of magnetic iron. The head is drawn somewhat +toward its natural pole, the truth; but more it is drawn by that nearer magnetism.</q> +See an affecting instance of Thomas Carlyle's enlightenment, after the death of his +wife, as to the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, in Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, +165. On the importance of feeling, in association of ideas, see Dewey, Psychology, +106, 107. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>The enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit.</hi> As only the +Spirit fathoms the things of God, so only he can illuminate our minds to +apprehend them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>1 Cor. 2:11, 12—<q>the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received ... the Spirit +which is from God; that we might know.</q></emph> Cicero, Nat. Deorum, 66—<q>Nemo igitur vir magnus +sine aliquo adfiatu divino unquam fuit.</q> Professor Beck of Tübingen: <q>For the student, +there is no privileged path leading to the truth; the only one which leads to it +is also that of the unlearned; it is that of regeneration and of gradual illumination by +the Holy Spirit; and without the Holy Spirit, theology is not only a cold stone, it is a +deadly poison.</q> As all the truths of the differential and integral calculus are wrapped +up in the simplest mathematical axiom, so all theology is wrapped up in the declaration +that God is holiness and love, or in the protevangelium uttered at the gates of Eden. +But dull minds cannot of themselves evolve the calculus from the axiom, nor can sinful +hearts evolve theology from the first prophecy. Teachers are needed to demonstrate +geometrical theorems, and the Holy Spirit is needed to show us that the <emph><q>new +commandment</q></emph> illustrated by the death of Christ is only an <emph><q>old commandment which ye had from the +beginning</q> (1 John 2:7)</emph>. The Principia of Newton is a revelation of Christ, and so are the +Scriptures. The Holy Spirit enables us to enter into the meaning of Christ's revelations +<pb n='041'/><anchor id='Pg041'/> +in both Scripture and nature; to interpret the one by the other; and so to work out +original demonstrations and applications of the truth; <emph>Mat. 13:52—<q>Therefore every scribe who +hath been made a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of +his treasure things new and old.</q></emph> See Adolph Monod's sermons on Christ's Temptation, addressed +to the theological students of Montauban, in Select Sermons from the French +and German, 117-179. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Divisions of Theology.</head> + +<p> +Theology is commonly divided into Biblical, +Historical, Systematic, and Practical. +</p> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Biblical Theology</hi> aims to arrange and classify the facts of revelation, +confining itself to the Scriptures for its material, and treating of doctrine +only so far as it was developed at the close of the apostolic age. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instance DeWette, Biblische Theologie; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis; Nitzsch, System +of Christian Doctrine. The last, however, has more of the philosophical element than +properly belongs to Biblical Theology. The third volume of Ritschl's Justification and +Reconciliation is intended as a system of Biblical Theology, the first and second +volumes being little more than an historical introduction. But metaphysics, of a +Kantian relativity and phenomenalism, enter so largely into Ritschl's estimates and +interpretations, as to render his conclusions both partial and rationalistic. Notice a +questionable use of the term Biblical Theology to designate the theology of a part of +Scripture severed from the rest, as Steudel's Biblical Theology of the Old Testament; +Schmidt's Biblical Theology of the New Testament; and in the common phrases: +Biblical Theology of Christ, or of Paul. These phrases are objectionable as intimating +that the books of Scripture have only a human origin. Upon the assumption that +there is no common divine authorship of Scripture, Biblical Theology is conceived of +as a series of fragments, corresponding to the differing teachings of the various +prophets and apostles, and the theology of Paul is held to be an unwarranted and +incongruous addition to the theology of Jesus. See Reuss, History of Christian +Theology in the Apostolic Age. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Historical Theology</hi> traces the development of the Biblical doctrines +from the time of the apostles to the present day, and gives account of the +results of this development in the life of the church. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +By doctrinal development we mean the progressive unfolding and apprehension, by +the church, of the truth explicitly or implicitly contained in Scripture. As giving +account of the shaping of the Christian faith into doctrinal statements, Historical +Theology is called the History of Doctrine. As describing the resulting and accompanying +changes in the life of the church, outward and inward, Historical Theology +is called Church History. Instance Cunningham's Historical Theology; Hagenbach's +and Shedd's Histories of Doctrine; Neander's Church History. There is always a danger +that the historian will see his own views too clearly reflected in the history of the church. +Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine has been called <q>The History of Dr. Shedd's +Christian Doctrine.</q> But if Dr. Shedd's Augustinianism colors his History, Dr. +Sheldon's Arminianism also colors his. G. P. Fisher's History of Christian Doctrine is +unusually lucid and impartial. See Neander's Introduction and Shedd's Philosophy of +History. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>Systematic Theology</hi> takes the material furnished by Biblical and +by Historical Theology, and with this material seeks to build up into an +organic and consistent whole all our knowledge of God and of the relations +between God and the universe, whether this knowledge be originally +derived from nature or from the Scriptures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Systematic Theology is therefore theology proper, of which Biblical and Historical +Theology are the incomplete and preparatory stages. Systematic Theology is to be +clearly distinguished from Dogmatic Theology. Dogmatic Theology is, in strict usage, +the systematizing of the doctrines as expressed in the symbols of the church, together +with the grounding of these in the Scriptures, and the exhibition, so far as may be, of +their rational necessity. Systematic Theology begins, on the other hand, not with the +<pb n='042'/><anchor id='Pg042'/> +symbols, but with the Scriptures. It asks first, not what the church has believed, but +what is the truth of God's revealed word. It examines that word with all the aids +which nature and the Spirit have given it, using Biblical and Historical Theology as its +servants and helpers, but not as its masters. Notice here the technical use of the word +<q>symbol,</q> from συμβάλλω, = a brief throwing together, or condensed statement of the +essentials of Christian doctrine. Synonyms are: Confession, creed, consensus, declaration, +formulary, canons, articles of faith. +</p> + +<p> +Dogmatism argues to foregone conclusions. The word is not, however, derived +from <q>dog,</q> as Douglas Jerrold facetiously suggested, when he said that <q>dogmatism +is puppyism full grown,</q> but from δοκέω to think, to opine. Dogmatic Theology has +two principles: (1) The absolute authority of creeds, as decisions of the church: (2) +The application to these creeds of formal logic, for the purpose of demonstrating +their truth to the understanding. In the Roman Catholic Church, not the Scripture +but the church, and the dogma given by it, is the decisive authority. The Protestant +principle, on the contrary, is that Scripture decides, and that dogma is to be judged by +it. Following Schleiermacher, Al. Schweizer thinks that the term <q>Dogmatik</q> +should be discarded as essentially unprotestant, and that <q>Glaubenslehre</q> should +take its place; and Harnack, Hist. Dogma, 6, remarks that <q>dogma has ever, in the +progress of history, devoured its own progenitors.</q> While it is true that every new +and advanced thinker in theology has been counted a heretic, there has always been +a common faith—<emph><q>the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints</q> (Jude 3)</emph>—and the study +of Systematic Theology has been one of the chief means of preserving this faith in the +world. <emph>Mat. 15:13, 14—<q>Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up. Let them +alone: they are blind guides</q></emph> = there is truth planted by God, and it has permanent divine +life. Human errors have no permanent vitality and they perish of themselves. See +Kaftan, Dogmatik, 2, 3. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>Practical Theology</hi> is the system of truth considered as a means of +renewing and sanctifying men, or, in other words, theology in its publication +and enforcement. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To this department of theology belong Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, since +these are but scientific presentations of the right methods of unfolding Christian +truth, and of bringing it to bear upon men individually and in the church. See Van +Oosterzee, Practical Theology; T. Harwood Pattison, The Making of the Sermon, and +Public Prayer; Yale Lectures on Preaching by H. W. Beecher, R. W. Dale, Phillips +Brooks, E. G. Robinson, A. J. F. Behrends, John Watson, and others; and the work on +Pastoral Theology, by Harvey. +</p> + +<p> +It is sometimes asserted that there are other departments of theology not included in +those above mentioned. But most of these, if not all, belong to other spheres of +research, and cannot properly be classed under theology at all. Moral Theology, so +called, or the science of Christian morals, ethics, or theological ethics, is indeed the +proper result of theology, but is not to be confounded with it. Speculative theology, +so called, respecting, as it does, such truth as is mere matter of opinion, is either +extra-scriptural, and so belongs to the province of the philosophy of religion, or is an +attempt to explain truth already revealed, and so falls within the province of Systematic +Theology. <q>Speculative theology starts from certain <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> principles, and +from them undertakes to determine what is and must be. It deduces its scheme +of doctrine from the laws of mind or from axioms supposed to be inwrought into its +constitution.</q> Bib. Sac., 1852:376—<q>Speculative theology tries to show that the +dogmas agree with the laws of thought, while the philosophy of religion tries to +show that the laws of thought agree with the dogmas.</q> Theological Encyclopædia +(the word signifies <q>instruction in a circle</q>) is a general introduction to all the divisions +of Theology, together with an account of the relations between them. Hegel's +Encyclopædia was an attempted exhibition of the principles and connections of all +the sciences. See Crooks and Hurst, Theological Encyclopædia and Methodology; +Zöckler, Handb. der theol. Wissenschaften, 2:606-769. +</p> + +<p> +The relations of theology to science and philosophy have been variously stated, but +by none better than by H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 18—<q>Philosophy is a mode +of human knowledge—not the whole of that knowledge, but a mode of it—the +knowing of things rationally.</q> Science asks: <q>What <emph>do</emph> I know?</q> Philosophy asks: +<q>What <emph>can</emph> I know?</q> William James, Psychology, 1:145—<q>Metaphysics means nothing +<pb n='043'/><anchor id='Pg043'/> +but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.</q> Aristotle: <q>The particular +sciences are toiling workmen, while philosophy is the architect. The workmen are +slaves, existing for the free master. So philosophy rules the sciences.</q> With regard to +philosophy and science Lord Bacon remarks: <q>Those who have handled knowledge +have been too much either men of mere observation or abstract reasoners. The +former are like the ant: they only collect material and put it to immediate use. The +abstract reasoners are like spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. +But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the +garden and the field, while it transforms and digests what it gathers by a power of its +own. Not unlike this is the work of the philosopher.</q> Novalis: <q>Philosophy can +bake no bread; but it can give us God, freedom and immortality.</q> Prof. DeWitt of +Princeton: <q>Science, philosophy, and theology are the three great modes of organizing +the universe into an intellectual system. Science never goes below second +causes; if it does, it is no longer science,—it becomes philosophy. Philosophy views +the universe as a unity, and the goal it is always seeking to reach is the source and +centre of this unity—the Absolute, the First Cause. This goal of philosophy is the +point of departure for theology. What philosophy is striving to find, theology +asserts has been found. Theology therefore starts with the Absolute, the First +Cause.</q> W. N. Clarke, Christian Theology, 48—<q>Science examines and classifies +facts; philosophy inquires concerning spiritual meanings. Science seeks to know the +universe; philosophy to understand it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 7—<q>Natural science has for its subject matter +things and events. Philosophy is the systematic exhibition of the grounds of our +knowledge. Metaphysics is our knowledge respecting realities which are not phenomenal, +<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, God and the soul.</q> Knight, Essays in Philosophy, 81—<q>The aim of the +sciences is increase of knowledge, by the discovery of laws within which all phenomena +may be embraced and by means of which they may be explained. The aim of +philosophy, on the other hand, is to explain the sciences, by at once including and +transcending them. Its sphere is substance and essence.</q> Bowne, Theory of Thought +and Knowledge, 3-5—<q>Philosophy = <emph>doctrine of knowledge</emph> (is mind passive or active +in knowing?—Epistemology) + <emph>doctrine of being</emph> (is fundamental being mechanical +and unintelligent, or purposive and intelligent?—Metaphysics). The systems of +Locke, Hume, and Kant are preëminently theories of knowing; the systems of +Spinoza and Leibnitz are preëminently theories of being. Historically theories of +being come first, because the object is the only determinant for reflective thought. +But the instrument of philosophy is thought itself. First then, we must study Logic, +or the theory of thought; secondly, Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge; +thirdly, Metaphysics, or the theory of being.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Professor George M. Forbes on the New Psychology: <q>Locke and Kant represent +the two tendencies in philosophy—the empirical, physical, scientific, on the one hand, +and the rational, metaphysical, logical, on the other. Locke furnishes the basis for +the associational schemes of Hartley, the Mills, and Bain; Kant for the idealistic +scheme of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The two are not contradictory, but complementary, +and the Scotch Reid and Hamilton combine them both, reacting against the +extreme empiricism and scepticism of Hume. Hickok, Porter, and McCosh represented +the Scotch school in America. It was exclusively <emph>analytical</emph>; its psychology +was the faculty-psychology; it represented the mind as a bundle of faculties. The +unitary philosophy of T. H. Green, Edward Caird, in Great Britain, and in America, +of W. T. Harris, George S. Morris, and John Dewey, was a reaction against this faculty-psychology, +under the influence of Hegel. A second reaction under the influence of +the Herbartian doctrine of apperception substituted function for faculty, making all +processes phases of apperception. G. F. Stout and J. Mark Baldwin represent this +psychology. A third reaction comes from the influence of physical science. All +attempts to unify are relegated to a metaphysical Hades. There is nothing but states +and processes. The only unity is the laws of their coëxistence and succession. There +is nothing <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign>. Wundt identifies apperception with will, and regards it as the +unitary principle. Külpe and Titchener find no self, or will, or soul, but treat these as +inferences little warranted. Their psychology is psychology without a soul. The old +psychology was exclusively <emph>static</emph>, while the new emphasizes the genetic point of view. +Growth and development are the leading ideas of Herbert Spencer, Preyer, Tracy +and Stanley Hall. William James is explanatory, while George T. Ladd is descriptive. +Cattell, Scripture, and Münsterberg apply the methods of Fechner, and the Psychological +<pb n='044'/><anchor id='Pg044'/> +Review is their organ. Their error is in their negative attitude. The old psychology +is needed to supplement the new. It has greater scope and more practical +significance.</q> On the relation of theology to philosophy and to science, see Luthardt, +Compend. der Dogmatik, 4; Hagenbach, Encyclopädie, 109. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. History of Systematic Theology.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>In the Eastern Church</hi>, Systematic Theology may be said to have +had its beginning and end in John of Damascus (700-760). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ignatius († 115—Ad Trall., c. 9) gives us <q>the first distinct statement of the faith +drawn up in a series of propositions. This systematizing formed the basis of all later +efforts</q> (Prof. A. H. Newman). Origen of Alexandria (186-254) wrote his Περὶ Ἀρχῶν; +Athanasius of Alexandria (300-373) his Treatises on the Trinity and the Deity of Christ; +and Gregory of Nyssa in Cappadocia (332-398) his Λόγος κατηχητικὸς ὁ μέγας. Hatch, +Hibbert Lectures, 323, regards the <q>De Principiis</q> of Origen as the <q>first complete system +of dogma,</q> and speaks of Origen as <q>the disciple of Clement of Alexandria, the +first great teacher of philosophical Christianity.</q> But while the Fathers just mentioned +seem to have conceived the plan of expounding the doctrines in order and of +showing their relation to one another, it was John of Damascus (700-760) who first +actually carried out such a plan. His Ἔκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου Πίστεως, or Summary +of the Orthodox Faith, may be considered the earliest work of Systematic Theology. +Neander calls it <q>the most important doctrinal text-book of the Greek Church.</q> John, +like the Greek Church in general, was speculative, theological, semi-pelagian, sacramentarian. +The Apostles' Creed, so called, is, in its present form, not earlier than the +fifth century; see Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, 1:19. Mr. Gladstone suggested that +the Apostles' Creed was a development of the baptismal formula. McGiffert, Apostles' +Creed, assigns to the meagre original form a date of the third quarter of the second +century, and regards the Roman origin of the symbol as proved. It was framed +as a baptismal formula, but specifically in opposition to the teachings of Marcion, +which were at that time causing much trouble at Rome. Harnack however dates the +original Apostles' Creed at 150, and Zahn places it at 120. See also J. C. Long, in Bap. +Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892: 89-101. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>In the Western Church</hi>, we may (with Hagenbach) distinguish +three periods: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The period of Scholasticism,—introduced by Peter Lombard +(1100-1160), and reaching its culmination in Thomas Aquinas (1221-1274) +and Duns Scotus (1265-1308). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Though Systematic Theology had its beginning in the Eastern Church, its development +has been confined almost wholly to the Western. Augustine (353-430) wrote +his <q>Encheiridion ad Laurentium</q> and his <q>De Civitate Dei,</q> and John Scotus Erigena +(† 850), Roscelin (1092-1122), and Abelard (1079-1142), in their attempts at the +rational explanation of the Christian doctrine foreshadowed the works of the great +scholastic teachers. Anselm of Canterbury (1034-1109), with his <q>Proslogion de Dei +Existentia</q> and his <q>Cur Deus Homo,</q> has sometimes, but wrongly, been called the +founder of Scholasticism. Allen, in his Continuity of Christian Thought, represents +the transcendence of God as the controlling principle of the Augustinian and of the +Western theology. The Eastern Church, he maintains, had founded its theology on +God's immanence. Paine, in his Evolution of Trinitarianism, shows that this is erroneous. +Augustine was a theistic monist. He declares that <q>Dei voluntas rerum natura +est,</q> and regards God's upholding as a continuous creation. Western theology recognized +the immanence of God as well as his transcendence. +</p> + +<p> +Peter Lombard, however, (1100-1160), the <q>magister sententiarum,</q> was the first +great systematizer of the Western Church, and his <q>Libri Sententiarum Quatuor</q> was +the theological text-book of the Middle Ages. Teachers lectured on the <q>Sentences</q> +(<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Sententia</foreign> = sentence, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Satz</foreign>, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>locus</foreign>, point, article of faith), as they did on the books of +Aristotle, who furnished to Scholasticism its impulse and guide. Every doctrine was +treated in the order of Aristotle's four causes: the material, the formal, the efficient, +the final. (<q>Cause</q> here = requisite: (1) matter of which a thing consists, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, bricks +and mortar; (2) form it assumes, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, plan or design; (3) producing agent, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, +builder; (4) end for which made, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, house.) The organization of physical as well as +<pb n='045'/><anchor id='Pg045'/> +of theological science was due to Aristotle. Dante called him <q>the master of those who +know.</q> James Ten Broeke, Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26—<q>The Revival of Learning +showed the world that the real Aristotle was much broader than the Scholastic +Aristotle—information very unwelcome to the Roman Church.</q> For the influence +of Scholasticism, compare the literary methods of Augustine and of Calvin,—the +former giving us his materials in disorder, like soldiers bivouacked for the night; the +latter arranging them like those same soldiers drawn up in battle array; see A. H. +Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 4, and Christ in Creation, 188, 189. +</p> + +<p> +Candlish, art.: Dogmatic, in Encycl. Brit., 7:340—<q>By and by a mighty intellectual +force took hold of the whole collected dogmatic material, and reared out of it the great +scholastic systems, which have been compared to the grand Gothic cathedrals that were +the work of the same ages.</q> Thomas Aquinas (1221-1274), the Dominican, <q>doctor +angelicus,</q> Augustinian and Realist,—and Duns Scotus (1265-1308), the Franciscan, +<q>doctor subtilis,</q>—wrought out the scholastic theology more fully, and left behind +them, in their <hi rend='italic'>Summæ</hi>, gigantic monuments of intellectual industry and acumen. +Scholasticism aimed at the proof and systematizing of the doctrines of the Church +by means of Aristotle's philosophy. It became at last an illimitable morass of useless +subtilities and abstractions, and it finally ended in the nominalistic scepticism of +William of Occam (1270-1347). See Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The period of Symbolism,—represented by the Lutheran theology +of Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), and the Reformed theology of +John Calvin (1509-1564); the former connecting itself with the Analytic +theology of Calixtus (1585-1656), and the latter with the Federal theology +of Cocceius (1603-1669). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The Lutheran Theology.</hi>—Preachers precede theologians, and Luther (1485-1546) was +preacher rather than theologian. But Melanchthon (1497-1560), <q>the preceptor of +Germany,</q> as he was called, embodied the theology of the Lutheran church in his <q>Loci +Communes</q> = points of doctrine common to believers (first edition Augustinian, +afterwards substantially Arminian; grew out of lectures on the Epistle to the Romans). +He was followed by Chemnitz (1522-1586), <q>clear and accurate,</q> the most learned of the +disciples of Melanchthon. Leonhard Hutter (1563-1616), called <q>Lutherus redivivus,</q> +and John Gerhard (1582-1637) followed Luther rather than Melanchthon. <q>Fifty years +after the death of Melanchthon, Leonhard Hutter, his successor in the chair of theology +at Wittenberg, on an occasion when the authority of Melanchthon was appealed to, +tore down from the wall the portrait of the great Reformer, and trampled it under foot +in the presence of the assemblage</q> (E. D. Morris, paper at the 60th Anniversary of Lane +Seminary). George Calixtus (1586-1656) followed Melanchthon rather than Luther. +He taught a theology which recognized the good element in both the Reformed and +the Romanist doctrine and which was called <q>Syncretism.</q> He separated Ethics from +Systematic Theology, and applied the analytical method of investigation to the latter, +beginning with the end, or final cause, of all things, viz.: blessedness. He was followed +in his analytic method by Dannhauer (1603-1666), who treated theology allegorically, +Calovius (1612-1686), <q>the most uncompromising defender of Lutheran orthodoxy +and the most drastic polemicist against Calixtus,</q> Quenstedt (1617-1688), whom +Hovey calls <q>learned, comprehensive and logical,</q> and Hollaz († 1730). The Lutheran +theology aimed to purify the <emph>existing</emph> church, maintaining that what is not against +the gospel is for it. It emphasized the material principle of the Reformation, justification +by faith; but it retained many Romanist customs not expressly forbidden in +Scripture. Kaftan, Am. Jour. Theol., 1900:716—<q>Because the mediæval school-philosophy +mainly held sway, the Protestant theology representing the new faith was +meanwhile necessarily accommodated to forms of knowledge thereby conditioned, +that is, to forms essentially Catholic.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The Reformed Theology.</hi>—The word <q>Reformed</q> is here used in its technical sense, +as designating that phase of the new theology which originated in Switzerland. Zwingle, +the Swiss reformer (1484-1531), differing from Luther as to the Lord's Supper and as +to Scripture, was more than Luther entitled to the name of systematic theologian. +Certain writings of his may be considered the beginning of Reformed theology. But +it was left to John Calvin (1509-1564), after the death of Zwingle, to arrange the principles +of that theology in systematic form. Calvin dug channels for Zwingle's flood to +flow in, as Melanchthon did for Luther's. His Institutes (<q>Institutio Religionis Christianæ</q>), +<pb n='046'/><anchor id='Pg046'/> +is one of the great works in theology (superior as a systematic work to Melanchthon's +<q>Loci</q>). Calvin was followed by Peter Martyr (1500-1562), Chamier (1565-1621), +and Theodore Beza (1519-1605). Beza carried Calvin's doctrine of predestination +to an extreme supralapsarianism, which is hyper-Calvinistic rather than Calvinistic. +Cocceius (1603-1669), and after him Witsius (1626-1708), made theology centre about the +idea of the covenants, and founded the Federal theology. Leydecker (1642-1721) +treated theology in the order of the persons of the Trinity. Amyraldus (1596-1664) +and Placeus of Saumur (1596-1632) modified the Calvinistic doctrine, the latter by his +theory of mediate imputation, and the former by advocating the hypothetic universalism +of divine grace. Turretin (1671-1737), a clear and strong theologian whose work +is still a text-book at Princeton, and Pictet (1655-1725), both of them Federalists, +showed the influence of the Cartesian philosophy. The Reformed theology aimed to +build a <emph>new</emph> church, affirming that what is not derived from the Bible is against it. It +emphasized the formal principle of the Reformation, the sole authority of Scripture. +</p> + +<p> +In general, while the line between Catholic and Protestant in Europe runs from west +to east, the line between Lutheran and Reformed runs from south to north, the +Reformed theology flowing with the current of the Rhine northward from Switzerland +to Holland and to England, in which latter country the Thirty-nine Articles represent +the Reformed faith, while the Prayer-book of the English Church is substantially +Arminian; see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theologie, Einleit., 9. On the difference between +Lutheran and Reformed doctrine, see Schaff, Germany, its Universities, Theology and +Religion, 167-177. On the Reformed Churches of Europe and America, see H. B. Smith, +Faith and Philosophy, 87-124. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The period of Criticism and Speculation,—in its three divisions: +the Rationalistic, represented by Semler (1725-1791); the Transitional, by +Schleiermacher (1768-1834); the Evangelical, by Nitzsch, Müller, Tholuck +and Dorner. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>First Division.</hi> Rationalistic theologies: Though the Reformation had freed theology +in great part from the bonds of scholasticism, other philosophies after a time took its +place. The Leibnitz- (1646-1754) Wolffian (1679-1754) exaggeration of the powers of +natural religion prepared the way for rationalistic systems of theology. Buddeus +(1667-1729) combated the new principles, but Semler's (1725-1791) theology was built +upon them, and represented the Scriptures as having a merely local and temporary +character. Michaelis (1716-1784) and Doederlein (1714-1789) followed Semler, and the +tendency toward rationalism was greatly assisted by the critical philosophy of Kant +(1724-1804), to whom <q>revelation was problematical, and positive religion merely the +medium through which the practical truths of reason are communicated</q> (Hagenbach, +Hist. Doct., 2:397). Ammon (1766-1850) and Wegscheider (1771-1848) were representatives +of this philosophy. Daub, Marheinecke and Strauss (1808-1874) were the Hegelian +dogmatists. The system of Strauss resembled <q>Christian theology as a cemetery resembles +a town.</q> Storr (1746-1805), Reinhard (1753-1812), and Knapp (1753-1825), in the +main evangelical, endeavored to reconcile revelation with reason, but were more or +less influenced by this rationalizing spirit. Bretschneider (1776-1828) and De Wette +(1780-1849) may be said to have held middle ground. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Second Division.</hi> Transition to a more Scriptural theology. Herder (1744-1803) and +Jacobi (1743-1819), by their more spiritual philosophy, prepared the way for Schleiermacher's +(1768-1834) grounding of doctrine in the facts of Christian experience. The +writings of Schleiermacher constituted an epoch, and had great influence in delivering +Germany from the rationalistic toils into which it had fallen. We may now speak of a +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Third Division</hi>—and in this division we may put the names of Neander and Tholuck, +Twesten and Nitzsch, Müller and Luthardt, Dorner and Philippi, Ebrard and Thomasius, +Lange and Kahnis, all of them exponents of a far more pure and evangelical theology +than was common in Germany a century ago. Two new forms of rationalism, +however, have appeared in Germany, the one based upon the philosophy of Hegel, and +numbering among its adherents Strauss and Baur, Biedermann, Lipsius and Pfleiderer; +the other based upon the philosophy of Kant, and advocated by Ritschl and his +followers, Harnack, Hermann and Kaftan; the former emphasizing the ideal Christ, +the latter emphasizing the historical Christ; but neither of the two fully recognizing +the living Christ present in every believer (see Johnson's Cyclopædia, art.: Theology, +by A. H. Strong). +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='047'/><anchor id='Pg047'/> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>Among theologians of views diverse from the prevailing Protestant +faith</hi>, may be mentioned: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Bellarmine (1542-1621), the Roman Catholic. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Besides Bellarmine, <q>the best controversial writer of his age</q> (Bayle), the Roman +Catholic Church numbers among its noted modern theologians:—Petavius (1583-1652), +whose dogmatic theology Gibbon calls <q>a work of incredible labor and compass</q>; +Melchior Canus (1523-1560), an opponent of the Jesuits and their scholastic method; +Bossuet (1627-1704), who idealized Catholicism in his Exposition of Doctrine, and +attacked Protestantism in his History of Variations of Protestant Churches; Jansen +(1585-1638), who attempted, in opposition to the Jesuits, to reproduce the theology of +Augustine, and who had in this the powerful assistance of Pascal (1623-1662). Jansenism, +so far as the doctrines of grace are concerned, but not as respects the sacraments, +is virtual Protestantism within the Roman Catholic Church. Moehler's Symbolism, Perrone's +<q>Prelectiones Theologicæ,</q> and Hurter's <q>Compendium Theologiæ Dogmaticæ</q> +are the latest and most approved expositions of Roman Catholic doctrine. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Arminius (1560-1609), the opponent of predestination. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Among the followers of Arminius (1560-1609) must be reckoned Episcopius (1583-1643), +who carried Arminianism to almost Pelagian extremes; Hugo Grotius (1553-1645), +the jurist and statesman, author of the governmental theory of the atonement; +and Limborch (1633-1712), the most thorough expositor of the Arminian doctrine. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Laelius Socinus (1525-1562), and Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), +the leaders of the modern Unitarian movement. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The works of Laelius Socinus (1525-1562) and his nephew, Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) +constituted the beginnings of modern Unitarianism. Laelius Socinus was the preacher +and reformer, as Faustus Socinus was the theologian; or, as Baumgarten Crusius +expresses it: <q>the former was the spiritual founder of Socinianism, and the latter the +founder of the sect.</q> Their writings are collected in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum. +The Racovian Catechism, taking its name from the Polish town Racow, +contains the most succinct exposition of their views. In 1660, the Unitarian church +of the Socini in Poland was destroyed by persecution, but its Hungarian offshoot +has still more than a hundred congregations. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>British Theology</hi>, represented by: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Baptists, John Bunyan (1628-1688), John Gill (1697-1771), +and Andrew Fuller (1754-1815). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Some of the best British theology is Baptist. Among John Bunyan's works we may +mention his <q>Gospel Truths Opened,</q> though his <q>Pilgrim's Progress</q> and <q>Holy +War</q> are theological treatises in allegorical form. Macaulay calls Milton and +Bunyan the two great creative minds of England during the latter part of the 17th +century. John Gill's <q>Body of Practical Divinity</q> shows much ability, although the +Rabbinical learning of the author occasionally displays itself in a curious exegesis, as +when on the word <q>Abba</q> he remarks: <q>You see that this word which means 'Father' +reads the same whether we read forward or backward; which suggests that God is the +same whichever way we look at him.</q> Andrew Fuller's <q>Letters on Systematic +Divinity</q> is a brief compend of theology. His treatises upon special doctrines are +marked by sound judgment and clear insight. They were the most influential factor +in rescuing the evangelical churches of England from antinomianism. They justify +the epithets which Robert Hall, one of the greatest of Baptist preachers, gives him: +<q>sagacious,</q> <q>luminous,</q> <q>powerful.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The Puritans, John Owen (1616-1683), Richard Baxter (1615-1691), +John Howe (1630-1705), and Thomas Ridgeley (1666-1734). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Owen was the most rigid, as Baxter was the most liberal, of the Puritans. The +Encyclopædia Britannica remarks: <q>As a theological thinker and writer, John Owen +holds his own distinctly defined place among those titanic intellects with which the +<pb n='048'/><anchor id='Pg048'/> +age abounded. Surpassed by Baxter in point and pathos, by Howe in imagination +and the higher philosophy, he is unrivaled in his power of unfolding the rich meanings +of Scripture. In his writings he was preëminently the great theologian.</q> Baxter +wrote a <q>Methodus Theologiæ,</q> and a <q>Catholic Theology</q>; John Howe is chiefly +known by his <q>Living Temple</q>; Thomas Ridgeley by his <q>Body of Divinity.</q> +Charles H. Spurgeon never ceased to urge his students to become familiar with the +Puritan Adams, Ambrose, Bowden, Manton and Sibbes. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The Scotch Presbyterians, Thomas Boston (1676-1732), John Dick +(1764-1833), and Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Of the Scotch Presbyterians, Boston is the most voluminous, Dick the most calm and +fair, Chalmers the most fervid and popular. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The Methodists, John Wesley (1703-1791), and Richard Watson +(1781-1833). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Of the Methodists, John Wesley's doctrine is presented in <q>Christian Theology,</q> +collected from his writings by the Rev. Thornley Smith. The great Methodist text-book, +however, is the <q>Institutes</q> of Watson, who systematized and expounded the +Wesleyan theology. Pope, a recent English theologian, follows Watson's modified +and improved Arminianism, while Whedon and Raymond, recent American writers, +hold rather to a radical and extreme Arminianism. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The Quakers, George Fox (1624-1691), and Robert Barclay (1648-1690). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As Jesus, the preacher and reformer, preceded Paul the theologian; as Luther +preceded Melanchthon; as Zwingle preceded Calvin; as Laelius Socinus preceded +Faustus Socinus; as Wesley preceded Watson; so Fox preceded Barclay. Barclay +wrote an <q>Apology for the true Christian Divinity,</q> which Dr. E. G. Robinson +described as <q>not a formal treatise of Systematic Theology, but the ablest exposition +of the views of the Quakers.</q> George Fox was the reformer, William Penn the social +founder, Robert Barclay the theologian, of Quakerism. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) The English Churchmen, Richard Hooker (1553-1600), Gilbert +Burnet (1643-1715), and John Pearson (1613-1686). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The English church has produced no great systematic theologian (see reasons +assigned in Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theologie, 470). The <q>judicious</q> Hooker is still its +greatest theological writer, although his work is only on <q>Ecclesiastical Polity.</q> +Bishop Burnet is the author of the <q>Exposition of the XXXIX Articles,</q> and Bishop +Pearson of the <q>Exposition of the Creed.</q> Both these are common English text-books. +A recent <q>Compendium of Dogmatic Theology,</q> by Litton, shows a tendency +to return from the usual Arminianism of the Anglican church to the old Augustinianism; +so also Bishop Moule's <q>Outlines of Christian Doctrine,</q> and Mason's <q>Faith of +the Gospel.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +5. <hi rend='italic'>American theology</hi>, running in two lines: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Reformed system of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), modified +successively by Joseph Bellamy (1719-1790), Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), +Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), Nathanael Emmons (1745-1840), Leonard +Woods (1774-1854), Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), Nathaniel W. Taylor +(1786-1858), and Horace Bushnell (1802-1876). Calvinism, as thus +modified, is often called the New England, or New School, theology. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest of metaphysicians and theologians, was an +idealist who held that God is the only real cause, either in the realm of matter or in +the realm of mind. He regarded the chief good as happiness—a form of sensibility. +Virtue was voluntary choice of this good. Hence union with Adam in acts and +exercises was sufficient. Thus God's will made identity of being with Adam. This led +to the exercise-system of Hopkins and Emmons, on the one hand, and to Bellamy's and +<pb n='049'/><anchor id='Pg049'/> +Dwight's denial of any imputation of Adam's sin or of inborn depravity, on the other—in +which last denial agree many other New England theologians who reject the exercise-scheme, +as for example, Strong, Tyler, Smalley, Burton, Woods, and Park. Dr. N. W. +Taylor added a more distinctly Arminian element, the power of contrary choice—and +with this tenet of the New Haven theology, Charles G. Finney, of Oberlin, substantially +agreed. Horace Bushnell held to a practically Sabellian view of the Trinity, and to a +moral-influence theory of the atonement. Thus from certain principles admitted by +Edwards, who held in the main to an Old School theology, the New School theology +has been gradually developed. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Hall called Edwards <q>the greatest of the sons of men.</q> Dr. Chalmers +regarded him as the <q>greatest of theologians.</q> Dr. Fairbairn says: <q>He is not only +the greatest of all the thinkers that America has produced, but also the highest speculative +genius of the eighteenth century. In a far higher degree than Spinoza, he was a +'God-intoxicated man.'</q> His fundamental notion that there is no causality except +the divine was made the basis of a theory of necessity which played into the hands of +the deists whom he opposed and was alien not only to Christianity but even to theism. +Edwards could not have gotten his idealism from Berkeley; it may have been suggested +to him by the writings of Locke or Newton, Cudworth or Descartes, John +Norris or Arthur Collier. See Prof. H. N. Gardiner, in Philos. Rev., Nov. 1900:573-596; +Prof. E. C. Smyth, in Am. Jour. Theol., Oct. 1897:956; Allen, Jonathan Edwards, +16, 308-310, and in Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1891:767; Sanborn, in Jour. Spec. +Philos., Oct. 1883:401-420; G. P. Fisher, Edwards on the Trinity, 18, 19. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The older Calvinism, represented by Charles Hodge the father (1797-1878) +and A. A. Hodge the son (1823-1886), together with Henry B. +Smith (1815-1877), Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871), Samuel J. Baird, +and William G. T. Shedd (1820-1894). All these, although with minor +differences, hold to views of human depravity and divine grace more nearly +conformed to the doctrine of Augustine and Calvin, and are for this reason +distinguished from the New England theologians and their followers by +the popular title of Old School. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Old School theology, in its view of predestination, exalts God; New School theology, +by emphasizing the freedom of the will, exalts man. It is yet more important to notice +that Old School theology has for its characteristic tenet the guilt of inborn depravity. +But among those who hold this view, some are federalists and creationists, and justify +God's condemnation of all men upon the ground that Adam represented his posterity. +Such are the Princeton theologians generally, including Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, +and the brothers Alexander. Among those who hold to the Old School doctrine of the +guilt of inborn depravity, however, there are others who are traducians, and who +explain the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity upon the ground of the natural +union between him and them. Baird's <q>Elohim Revealed</q> and Shedd's essay on +<q>Original Sin</q> (Sin a Nature and that Nature Guilt) represent this realistic conception +of the relation of the race to its first father. R. J. Breckinridge, R. L. Dabney, and +J. H. Thornwell assert the fact of inherent corruption and guilt, but refuse to assign +any <emph>rationale</emph> for it, though they tend to realism. H. B. Smith holds guardedly to the +theory of mediate imputation. +</p> + +<p> +On the history of Systematic Theology in general, see Hagenbach, History of Doctrine +(from which many of the facts above given are taken), and Shedd, History of +Doctrine; also, Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:44-100; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 1:15-128; Hase, Hutterus +Redivivus, 24-52. Gretillat, Théologie Systématique, 3:24-120, has given an +excellent history of theology, brought down to the present time. On the history of +New England theology, see Fisher, Discussions and Essays, 285-354. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Order of Treatment in Systematic Theology.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Various methods of arranging the topics of a theological system.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Analytical method of Calixtus begins with the assumed end of +all things, blessedness, and thence passes to the means by which it is +secured. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The Trinitarian method of Leydecker and Martensen regards +<pb n='050'/><anchor id='Pg050'/> +Christian doctrine as a manifestation successively of the Father, Son and +Holy Spirit. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The Federal method of Cocceius, Witsius, and Boston +treats theology under the two covenants. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The Anthropological method +of Chalmers and Rothe; the former beginning with the Disease of Man +and passing to the Remedy; the latter dividing his Dogmatik into the +Consciousness of Sin and the Consciousness of Redemption. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The +Christological method of Hase, Thomasius and Andrew Fuller treats of +God, man, and sin, as presuppositions of the person and work of Christ. +Mention may also be made of (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) The Historical method, followed by +Ursinus, and adopted in Jonathan Edwards's History of Redemption; and +(<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) The Allegorical method of Dannhauer, in which man is described as a +wanderer, life as a road, the Holy Spirit as a light, the church as a candlestick, +God as the end, and heaven as the home; so Bunyan's Holy War, +and Howe's Living Temple. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Calixtus, Epitome Theologiæ; Leydecker, De Œconomia trium Personarum in +Negotio Salutis humanæ; Martensen (1808-1884), Christian Dogmatics; Cocceius, Summa +Theologiæ, and Summa Doctrinæ de Fœdere et Testamento Dei, in Works, vol. vi; +Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants; Boston, A Complete Body of Divinity (in +Works, vol. 1 and 2), Questions in Divinity (vol. 6), Human Nature in its Fourfold +State (vol. 8); Chalmers, Institutes of Theology; Rothe (1799-1867), Dogmatik, and +Theologische Ethik; Hase (1800-1890), Evangelische Dogmatik; Thomasius (1802-1875), +Christi Person und Werk; Fuller, Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation (in Works, +2:328-416), and Letters on Systematic Divinity (1:684-711); Ursinus (1534-1583), Loci +Theologici (in Works, 1:426-909); Dannhauer (1603-1666) Hodosophia Christiana, seu +Theologia Positiva in Methodum redacta. Jonathan Edwards's so-called History of +Redemption was in reality a system of theology in historical form. It <q>was to begin +and end with eternity, all great events and epochs in time being viewed <q>sub specie +eternitatis.</q> The three worlds—heaven, earth and hell—were to be the scenes of this +grand drama. It was to include the topics of theology as living factors, each in its +own place,</q> and all forming a complete and harmonious whole; see Allen, Jonathan +Edwards, 379, 380. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>The Synthetic Method</hi>, which we adopt in this compendium, is both +the most common and the most logical method of arranging the topics +of theology. This method proceeds from causes to effects, or, in the +language of Hagenbach (Hist. Doctrine, 2:152), <q>starts from the highest +principle, God, and proceeds to man, Christ, redemption, and finally to +the end of all things.</q> In such a treatment of theology we may best +arrange our topics in the following order: +</p> + +<lg> +<l>1st. The existence of God.</l> +<l>2d. The Scriptures a revelation from God.</l> +<l>3d. The nature, decrees and works of God.</l> +<l>4th. Man, in his original likeness to God and subsequent apostasy.</l> +<l>5th. Redemption, through the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit.</l> +<l>6th. The nature and laws of the Christian church.</l> +<l>7th. The end of the present system of things.</l> +</lg> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. Text-Books in Theology.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Confessions</hi>: Schaff, Creeds of Christendom. +</p> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Compendiums</hi>: H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology; A. A. +Hodge, Outlines of Theology; E. H. Johnson, Outline of Systematic +Theology; Hovey, Manual of Theology and Ethics; W. N. Clarke, Outline +<pb n='051'/><anchor id='Pg051'/> +of Christian Theology; Hase, Hutterus Redivivus; Luthardt, Compendium +der Dogmatik; Kurtz, Religionslehre. +</p> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>Extended Treatises</hi>: Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine; Shedd, +Dogmatic Theology; Calvin, Institutes; Charles Hodge, Systematic +Theology; Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics; Baird, Elohim Revealed; +Luthardt, Fundamental, Saving, and Moral Truths; Phillippi, Glaubenslehre; +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk. +</p> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>Collected Works</hi>: Jonathan Edwards; Andrew Fuller. +</p> + +<p> +5. <hi rend='italic'>Histories of Doctrine</hi>: Harnack; Hagenbach; Shedd; Fisher; +Sheldon; Orr, Progress of Dogma. +</p> + +<p> +6. <hi rend='italic'>Monographs</hi>: Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin; Shedd, Discourses +and Essays; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity; Dorner, History of the +Doctrine of the Person of Christ; Dale, Atonement; Strong, Christ +in Creation; Upton, Hibbert Lectures. +</p> + +<p> +7. <hi rend='italic'>Theism</hi>: Martineau, Study of Religion; Harris, Philosophical +Basis of Theism; Strong, Philosophy and Religion; Bruce, Apologetics; +Drummond, Ascent of Man; Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ. +</p> + +<p> +8. <hi rend='italic'>Christian Evidences</hi>: Butler, Analogy of Natural and Revealed +Religion; Fisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief; Row, Bampton +Lectures for 1877; Peabody, Evidences of Christianity; Mair, Christian +Evidences; Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion; Matheson, +Spiritual Development of St. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +9. <hi rend='italic'>Intellectual Philosophy</hi>: Stout, Handbook of Psychology; Bowne, +Metaphysics; Porter, Human Intellect; Hill, Elements of Psychology; +Dewey, Psychology. +</p> + +<p> +10. <hi rend='italic'>Moral Philosophy</hi>: Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality; +Smyth, Christian Ethics; Porter, Elements of Moral Science; Calderwood, +Moral Philosophy; Alexander, Moral Science; Robins, Ethics of the +Christian Life. +</p> + +<p> +11. <hi rend='italic'>General Science</hi>: Todd, Astronomy; Wentworth and Hill, Physics; +Remsen, Chemistry; Brigham, Geology; Parker, Biology; Martin, +Physiology; Ward, Fairbanks, or West, Sociology; Walker, Political +Economy. +</p> + +<p> +12. <hi rend='italic'>Theological Encyclopædias</hi>: Schaff-Herzog (English); McClintock +and Strong; Herzog (Second German Edition). +</p> + +<p> +13. <hi rend='italic'>Bible Dictionaries</hi>: Hastings; Davis; Cheyne; Smith (edited by +Hackett). +</p> + +<p> +14. <hi rend='italic'>Commentaries</hi>: Meyer, on the New Testament; Philippi, Lange, +Shedd, Sanday, on the Epistle to the Romans; Godet, on John's Gospel; +Lightfoot, on Philippians and Colossians; Expositor's Bible, on the Old +Testament books. +</p> + +<p> +15. <hi rend='italic'>Bibles</hi>: American Revision (standard edition); Revised Greek-English +New Testament (published by Harper & Brothers); Annotated +Paragraph Bible (published by the London Religious Tract Society) +Stier and Theile, Polyglotten-Bibel. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +An attempt has been made, in the list of text-books given above, to put first in each +class the book best worth purchasing by the average theological student, and to arrange +the books that follow this first one in the order of their value. German books, however, +when they are not yet accessible in an English translation, are put last, simply because +they are less likely to be used as books of reference by the average student. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='052'/><anchor id='Pg052'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Part II. The Existence Of God.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter I. Origin Of Our Idea Of God's Existence.</head> + +<p> +God is the infinite and perfect Spirit in whom all things have their source, +support, and end. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On the definition of the term God, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:366. Other definitions +are those of Calovius: <q>Essentia spiritualis infinite</q>; Ebrard: <q>The eternal source +of all that is temporal</q>; Kahnis: <q>The infinite Spirit</q>; John Howe: <q>An eternal, +uncaused, independent, necessary Being, that hath active power, life, wisdom, goodness, +and whatsoever other supposable excellency, in the highest perfection, in and of +itself</q>; Westminster Catechism: <q>A Spirit infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his +being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth</q>; Andrew Fuller: <q>The +first cause and last end of all things.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The existence of God is a first truth; in other words, the knowledge +of God's existence is a rational intuition. Logically, it precedes and conditions +all observation and reasoning. Chronologically, only reflection +upon the phenomena of nature and of mind occasions its rise in consciousness. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The term intuition means simply direct knowledge. Lowndes (Philos. of Primary +Beliefs, 78) and Mansel (Metaphysics, 52) would use the term only of our direct knowledge +of substances, as self and body; Porter applies it by preference to our cognition +of first truths, such as have been already mentioned. Harris (Philos. Basis of Theism, +44-151, but esp. 45, 46) makes it include both. He divides intuitions into two classes: 1. +<emph>Presentative</emph> intuitions, as self-consciousness (in virtue of which I perceive the existence +of spirit and already come in contact with the supernatural), and sense-perception +(in virtue of which I perceive the existence of matter, at least in my own organism, +and come in contact with nature); 2. <emph>Rational</emph> intuitions, as space, time, substance, +cause, final cause, right, absolute being. We may accept this nomenclature, using +the terms <q>first truths</q> and <q>rational intuitions</q> as equivalent to each other, and +classifying rational intuitions under the heads of (1) intuitions of relations, as space +and time; (2) intuitions of principles, as substance, cause, final cause, right; and (3) +intuition of absolute Being, Power, Reason, Perfection, Personality, as God. We hold +that, as upon occasion of the senses cognizing (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) extended matter, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) succession, +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) qualities, (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) change, (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) order, (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) action, respectively, the mind cognizes (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) space, +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) time, (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) substance, (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) cause, (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) design, (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) obligation, so upon occasion of our +cognizing our finiteness, dependence and responsibility, the mind directly cognizes the +existence of an Infinite and Absolute Authority, Perfection, Personality, upon whom +we are dependent and to whom we are responsible. +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 60—<q>As we walk in entire ignorance +of our muscles, so we often think in entire ignorance of the principles which underlie +<pb n='053'/><anchor id='Pg053'/> +and determine thinking. But as anatomy reveals that the apparently simple act of +walking involves a highly complex muscular activity, so analysis reveals that the +apparently simple act of thinking involves a system of mental principles.</q> Dewey, +Psychology, 238, 244—<q>Perception, memory, imagination, conception—each of these +is an act of intuition.... Every concrete act of knowledge involves an intuition of +God.</q> Martineau, Types, 1:459—The attempt to divest experience of either percepts +or intuitions is <q>like the attempt to peel a bubble in search for its colors and contents: +in tenuem ex oculis evanuit auram</q>; Study, 1:199—<q>Try with all your might +to do something difficult, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, to shut a door against a furious wind, and you recognize +Self and Nature—causal will, over against external causality</q>; 201—<q>Hence +our fellow-feeling with Nature</q>; 65—<q>As Perception gives us Will in the shape of +Causality over against us in the non-ego, so Conscience gives us Will in the shape of +Authority over against us in the non-ego</q>; Types, 2:5—<q>In perception it is self and +nature, in morals it is self and God, that stand face to face in the subjective and +objective antithesis</q>; Study, 2:2, 3—<q>In volitional experience we meet with objective +<emph>causality</emph>; in moral experience we meet with objective <emph>authority</emph>,—both being +objects of immediate knowledge, on the same footing of certainty with the apprehension +of the external material world. I know of no logical advantage which the belief +in finite objects around us can boast over the belief in the infinite and righteous +Cause of all</q>; 51—<q>In recognition of God as Cause, we raise the University; in +recognition of God as Authority, we raise the Church.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Kant declares that the idea of freedom is the source of our idea of personality,—personality +consists in the freedom of the whole soul from the mechanism of nature. +Lotze, Metaphysics, § 244—<q>So far as, and so long as, the soul knows itself as the identical +subject of inward experience, it is, and is named simply for that reason, substance.</q> +Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, 32—<q>Our conception of substance +is derived, not from the physical, but from the mental world. Substance is first +of all that which underlies our <emph>mental</emph> affections and manifestations.</q> James, Will to +Believe, 80—<q>Substance, as Kant says, means <q>das Beharrliche,</q> the abiding, that +which will be as it has been, because its being is essential and eternal.</q> In this sense we +have an intuitive belief in an abiding substance which underlies our own thoughts and +volitions, and this we call the soul. But we also have an intuitive belief in an abiding +substance which underlies all natural phenomena and all the events of history, and +this we call God. Among those who hold to this general view of an intuitive knowledge +of God may be mentioned the following:—Calvin, Institutes, book I, chap. 3; +Nitzsch, System of Christian Doctrine, 15-26, 133-140; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:78-84; +Ulrici, Leib und Seele, 688-725; Porter, Human Intellect, 497; Hickok, Rational +Cosmology, 58-89; Farrar, Science in Theology, 27-29; Bib. Sac., July, 1872:533, and +January, 1873:204; Miller, Fetich in Theology, 110-122; Fisher, Essays, 565-572; Tulloch, +Theism, 314-336; Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:191-203; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and +Christian Belief, 75, 76; Raymond, Syst. Theology, 1:247-262; Bascom, Science of +Mind, 246, 247; Knight, Studies in Philos. and Lit., 155-224; A. H. Strong, Philosophy +and Religion, 76-89. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. First Truths in General.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Their nature.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +A. Negatively.—A first truth is not (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Truth written prior to consciousness +upon the substance of the soul—for such passive knowledge implies a +materialistic view of the soul; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Actual knowledge of which the soul +finds itself in possession at birth—for it cannot be proved that the soul +has such knowledge; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) An idea, undeveloped at birth, but which has +the power of self-development apart from observation and experience—for +this is contrary to all we know of the laws of mental growth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1:17—<q>Intelligi necesse est esse deos, quoniam insitas +eorum vel potius innatas cogitationes habemus.</q> Origen, Adv. Celsum, 1:4—<q>Men +would not be guilty, if they did not carry in their minds common notions of morality, +innate and written in divine letters.</q> Calvin, Institutes, 1:3:3—<q>Those who rightly +judge will always agree that there is an indelible sense of divinity engraven upon +men's minds.</q> Fleming, Vocab. of Philosophy, art.: <q>Innate Ideas</q>—<q>Descartes +<pb n='054'/><anchor id='Pg054'/> +is supposed to have taught (and Locke devoted the first book of his Essays to refuting +the doctrine) that these ideas are innate or connate with the soul; <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, the intellect +finds itself at birth, or as soon as it wakes to conscious activity, to be possessed of ideas +to which it has only to attach the appropriate names, or of judgments which it only +needs to express in fit propositions—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, prior to any experience of individual objects.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 77—<q>In certain families, Descartes teaches, good +breeding and the gout are innate. Yet, of course, the children of such families have to +be instructed in deportment, and the infants just learning to walk seem happily quite +free from gout. Even so geometry is innate in us, but it does not come to our consciousness +without much trouble</q>; 79—Locke found no innate ideas. He maintained, +in reply, that <q>infants, with their rattles, showed no sign of being aware that things +which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.</q> Schopenhauer said that +<q>Jacobi had the trifling weakness of taking all he had learned and approved before his +fifteenth year for inborn ideas of the human mind.</q> Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 5—<q>That +the rational ideas are conditioned by the sense experience and are sequent to it, +is unquestioned by any one; and that experience shows a successive order of manifestation +is equally undoubted. But the sensationalist has always shown a curious blindness +to the ambiguity of such a fact. He will have it that what comes after must be a +modification of what went before; whereas it might be <emph>that</emph>, <emph>and</emph> it might be a new, +though conditioned, manifestation of an immanent nature or law. Chemical affinity is +not gravity, although affinity cannot manifest itself until gravity has brought the elements +into certain relations.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, 1:103—<q>This principle was not from the beginning +in the consciousness of men; for, in order to think ideas, reason must be clearly +developed, which in the first of mankind it could just as little be as in children. This +however does not exclude the fact that there was from the beginning the unconscious +rational impulse which lay at the basis of the formation of the belief in God, however +manifold may have been the direct motives which co-operated with it.</q> Self is implied +in the simplest act of knowledge. Sensation gives us two things, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, black and white; +but I cannot compare them without asserting difference <emph>for me</emph>. Different sensations +make no <emph>knowledge</emph>, without a <emph>self</emph> to bring them together. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, +lecture 2—<q>You could as easily prove the existence of an external world to a man who +had no senses to perceive it, as you could prove the existence of God to one who had +no consciousness of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Positively.—A first truth is a knowledge which, though developed +upon occasion of observation and reflection, is not derived from observation +and reflection,—a knowledge on the contrary which has such logical +priority that it must be assumed or supposed, in order to make any observation +or reflection possible. Such truths are not, therefore, recognized +first in order of time; some of them are assented to somewhat late in the +mind's growth; by the great majority of men they are never consciously +formulated at all. Yet they constitute the necessary assumptions upon +which all other knowledge rests, and the mind has not only the inborn +capacity to evolve them so soon as the proper occasions are presented, but +the recognition of them is inevitable so soon as the mind begins to give +account to itself of its own knowledge. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Mansel, Metaphysics, 52, 279—<q>To describe experience as the cause of the idea of +space would be as inaccurate as to speak of the soil in which it was planted as the +cause of the oak—though the planting in the soil is the condition which brings into +manifestation the latent power of the acorn.</q> Coleridge: <q>We see before we know that +we have eyes; but when once this is known, we perceive that eyes must have preëxisted +in order to enable us to see.</q> Coleridge speaks of first truths as <q>those necessities +of mind or forms of thinking, which, though revealed to us by experience, must +yet have preëxisted in order to make experience possible.</q> McCosh, Intuitions, 48, 49—Intuitions +are <q>like flower and fruit, which are in the plant from its embryo, but +may not be actually formed till there have been a stalk and branches and leaves.</q> +Porter, Human Intellect, 501, 519—<q>Such truths cannot be acquired or assented to first +of all.</q> Some are reached last of all. The moral intuition is often developed late, and +<pb n='055'/><anchor id='Pg055'/> +sometimes, even then, only upon occasion of corporal punishment. <q>Every man is as +lazy as circumstances will admit.</q> Our physical laziness is occasional; our mental +laziness frequent; our moral laziness incessant. We are too lazy to think, and especially +to think of religion. On account of this depravity of human nature we should expect +the intuition of God to be developed last of all. Men shrink from contact with God +and from the thought of God. In fact, their dislike for the intuition of God leads them +not seldom to deny all their other intuitions, even those of freedom and of right. +Hence the modern <q>psychology without a soul.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Schurman, Agnosticism and Religion, 105-115—<q>The idea of God ... is latest to +develop into clear consciousness ... and must be latest, for it is the unity of the +difference of the self and the not-self, which are therefore presupposed.</q> But <q>it has +not less validity in itself, it gives no less trustworthy assurance of actuality, than the +consciousness of the self, or the consciousness of the not-self.... The consciousness +of God is the logical <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>prius</foreign> of the consciousness of self and of the world. But not, +as already observed, the chronological; for, according to the profound observation of +Aristotle, what in the nature of things is first, is in the order of development last. Just +because God is the first principle of being and knowing, he is the last to be manifested +and known.... The finite and the infinite are both known together, and it is as +impossible to know one without the other as it is to apprehend an angle without the +sides which contain it.</q> For account of the relation of the intuitions to experience, see +especially Cousin, True, Beautiful and Good, 39-64, and History of Philosophy, 2:199-245. +Compare Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Introd., 1. See also Bascom, in Bib. Sac., +23:1-47; 27:68-90. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Their criteria.</hi> The criteria by which first truths are to be tested +are three: +</p> + +<p> +A. Their universality. By this we mean, not that all men assent to +them or understand them when propounded in scientific form, but that all +men manifest a practical belief in them by their language, actions, and +expectations. +</p> + +<p> +B. Their necessity. By this we mean, not that it is impossible to deny +these truths, but that the mind is compelled by its very constitution to +recognize them upon the occurrence of the proper conditions, and to +employ them in its arguments to prove their non-existence. +</p> + +<p> +C. Their logical independence and priority. By this we mean that +these truths can be resolved into no others, and proved by no others; that +they are presupposed in the acquisition of all other knowledge, and can +therefore be derived from no other source than an original cognitive power +of the mind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instances of the professed and formal denial of first truths:—the positivist denies +causality; the idealist denies substance; the pantheist denies personality; the necessitarian +denies freedom; the nihilist denies his own existence. A man may in like manner +argue that there is no necessity for an atmosphere; but even while he argues, he +breathes it. Instance the knock-down argument to demonstrate the freedom of the +will. I grant my own existence in the very doubting of it; for <q>cogito, ergo sum,</q> as +Descartes himself insisted, really means <q>cogito, scilicet sum</q>; H. B. Smith: <q>The +statement is analysis, not proof.</q> Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, 59—<q>The <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>cogito</foreign>, +in barbarous Latin = <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>cogitans sum</foreign>: thinking is self-conscious <emph>being</emph>.</q> Bentham: <q>The +word <emph>ought</emph> is an authoritative imposture, and ought to be banished from the realm of +morals.</q> Spinoza and Hegel really deny self-consciousness when they make man a +phenomenon of the infinite. Royce likens the denier of personality to the man who +goes outside of his own house and declares that no one lives there because, when he +looks in at the window, he sees no one inside. +</p> + +<p> +Professor James, in his Psychology, assumes the reality of a brain, but refuses to +assume the reality of a soul. This is essentially the position of materialism. But this +assumption of a brain is metaphysics, although the author claims to be writing a +<pb n='056'/><anchor id='Pg056'/> +psychology without metaphysics. Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, 3—<q>The materialist +believes in causation proper so long as he is explaining the origin of mind from matter, +but when he is asked to see in mind the cause of physical change he at once +becomes a mere phenomenalist.</q> Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 400—<q>I know +that all beings, if only they can count, must find that three and two make five. Perhaps +the angels cannot count; but, if they can, this axiom is true for them. If I met +an angel who declared that his experience had occasionally shown him a three and two +that did <emph>not</emph> make five, I should know at once what sort of an angel he was.</q> On the +criteria of first truths, see Porter, Human Intellect, 510, 511. On denial of them, see +Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:213. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. The Existence of God a first truth.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Its universality.</head> + +<p> +That <hi rend='italic'>the knowledge of God's existence answers the first criterion +of universality</hi>, is evident from the following considerations: +</p> + +<p> +A. It is an acknowledged fact that the vast majority of men have actually +recognized the existence of a spiritual being or beings, upon whom +they conceived themselves to be dependent. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Vedas declare: <q>There is but one Being—no second.</q> Max Müller, Origin and +Growth of Religion, 34—<q>Not the visible sun, moon and stars are invoked, but something +else that cannot be seen.</q> The lowest tribes have conscience, fear death, believe +in witches, propitiate or frighten away evil fates. Even the fetich-worshiper, who +calls the stone or the tree a god, shows that he has already the idea of a God. We must +not measure the ideas of the heathen by their capacity for expression, any more than +we should judge the child's belief in the existence of his father by his success in drawing +the father's picture. On heathenism, its origin and nature, see Tholuck, in Bib. +Repos., 1832:86; Scholz, Götzendienst und Zauberwesen. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Those races and nations which have at first seemed destitute of such +knowledge have uniformly, upon further investigation, been found to possess +it, so that no tribe of men with which we have thorough acquaintance +can be said to be without an object of worship. We may presume that +further knowledge will show this to be true of all. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Moffat, who reported that certain African tribes were destitute of religion, was corrected +by the testimony of his son-in-law, Livingstone: <q>The existence of God and of +a future life is everywhere recognized in Africa.</q> Where men are most nearly destitute +of any formulated knowledge of God, the conditions for the awakening of the idea +are most nearly absent. An apple-tree may be so conditioned that it never bears +apples. <q>We do not judge of the oak by the stunted, flowerless specimens on the edge +of the Arctic Circle.</q> The presence of an occasional blind, deaf or dumb man does +not disprove the definition that man is a seeing, hearing and speaking creature. +Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 154—<q>We need not tremble for mathematics, even if +some tribes should be found without the multiplication-table.... Sub-moral and +sub-rational existence is always with us in the case of young children; and, if we +should find it elsewhere, it would have no greater significance.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Victor Hugo: <q>Some men deny the Infinite; some, too, deny the sun; they are the +blind.</q> Gladden, What is Left? 148—<q>A man may escape from his shadow by going +into the dark; if he comes under the light of the sun, the shadow is there. A man may +be so mentally undisciplined that he does not recognize these ideas; but let him learn +the use of his reason, let him reflect on his own mental processes, and he will know +that they are necessary ideas.</q> On an original monotheism, see Diestel, in Jahrbuch +für deutsche Theologie, 1860, and vol. 5:669; Max Müller, Chips, 1:337; Rawlinson, in +Present Day Tracts, No. 11; Legge, Religions of China, 8-11; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, +1:201-208. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Asmus, Indogerm. Relig., 2:1-8; and synopsis in Bib. +Sac., Jan. 1877:167-172. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that those individuals, in +heathen or in Christian lands, who profess themselves to be without any +<pb n='057'/><anchor id='Pg057'/> +knowledge of a spiritual power or powers above them, do yet indirectly +manifest the existence of such an idea in their minds and its positive influence +over them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Comte said that science would conduct God to the frontier and then bow him out, +with thanks for his provisional services. But Herbert Spencer affirms the existence of +a <q>Power to which no limit in time or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena as +presented in consciousness are manifestations.</q> The intuition of God, though formally +excluded, is implicitly contained in Spencer's system, in the shape of the <q>irresistible +belief</q> in Absolute Being, which distinguishes his position from that of Comte; see +H. Spencer, who says: <q>One truth must ever grow clearer—the truth that there is an +inscrutable existence everywhere manifested, to which we can neither find nor conceive +beginning or end—the one absolute certainty that we are ever in the presence of +an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed.</q> Mr. Spencer assumes +unity in the underlying Reality. Frederick Harrison sneeringly asks him: <q>Why not +say <q>forces,</q> instead of <q>force</q>?</q> While Harrison gives us a supreme moral ideal +without a metaphysical ground, Spencer gives us an ultimate metaphysical principle +without a final moral purpose. The idea of God is the synthesis of the two,—<q>They +are but broken lights of Thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they</q> (Tennyson, +In Memoriam). +</p> + +<p> +Solon spoke of ὁ θεός and of τὸ θεῖον, and Sophocles of ὁ μέγας θεός. The term for +<q>God</q> is identical in all the Indo-European languages, and therefore belonged to the +time before those languages separated; see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:201-208. In Virgil's +Æneid, Mezentius is an atheist, a despiser of the gods, trusting only in his spear +and in his right arm; but, when the corpse of his son is brought to him, his first act is to +raise his hands to heaven. Hume was a sceptic, but he said to Ferguson, as they +walked on a starry night: <q>Adam, there is a God!</q> Voltaire prayed in an Alpine +thunderstorm. Shelley wrote his name in the visitors' book of the inn at Montanvert, +and added: <q>Democrat, philanthropist, atheist</q>; yet he loved to think of a <q>fine +intellectual spirit pervading the universe</q>; and he also wrote: <q>The One remains, the +many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly.</q> Strauss +worships the Cosmos, because <q>order and law, reason and goodness</q> are the soul of it. +Renan trusts in goodness, design, ends. Charles Darwin, Life, 1:274—<q>In my most +extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist, in the sense of denying the existence +of a God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. This agreement among individuals and nations so widely separated +in time and place can be most satisfactorily explained by supposing that it +has its ground, not in accidental circumstances, but in the nature of man as +man. The diverse and imperfectly developed ideas of the supreme Being +which prevail among men are best accounted for as misinterpretations and +perversions of an intuitive conviction common to all. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Huxley, Lay Sermons, 163—<q>There are savages without God, in any proper sense of +the word; but there are none without ghosts.</q> Martineau, Study, 2:353, well replies: +<q>Instead of turning other people into ghosts, and then appropriating one to ourselves +[and attributing another to God, we may add] by way of imitation, we start from the +sense of personal continuity, and then predicate the same of others, under the figures +which keep most clear of the physical and perishable.</q> Grant Allen describes the +higher religions as <q>a grotesque fungoid growth,</q> that has gathered about a primitive +thread of ancestor-worship. But this is to derive the greater from the less. Sayce, +Hibbert Lectures, 358—<q>I can find no trace of ancestor-worship in the earliest literature +of Babylonia which has survived to us</q>—this seems fatal to Huxley's and Allen's +view that the idea of God is derived from man's prior belief in spirits of the dead. +C. M. Tyler, in Am. Jour. Theo., Jan. 1899:144—<q>It seems impossible to deify a dead +man, unless there is embryonic in primitive consciousness a prior concept of Deity.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Renouf, Religion of Ancient Egypt, 93—<q>The whole mythology of Egypt ... +turns on the histories of Ra and Osiris.... Texts are discovered which identify +Osiris and Ra.... Other texts are known wherein Ra, Osiris, Amon, and all other +gods disappear, except as simple <emph>names</emph>, and the unity of God is asserted in the noblest +language of monotheistic religion.</q> These facts are earlier than any known ancestor-worship. +<pb n='058'/><anchor id='Pg058'/> +<q>They point to an original idea of divinity above humanity</q> (see Hill, Genetic +Philosophy, 317). We must add the idea of the superhuman, before we can turn +any animism or ancestor-worship into a religion. This superhuman element was suggested +to early man by all he saw of nature about him, especially by the sight of the +heavens above, and by what he knew of causality within. For the evidence of a universal +recognition of a superior power, see Flint, Anti-theistic Theories, 250-289, 522-533; +Renouf, Hibbert Lectures for 1879:100; Bib. Sac., Jan. 1884:132-157; Peschel, Races of +Men, 261; Ulrici, Leib und Seele, 688, and Gott und die Natur, 658-670, 758; Tylor, Primitive +Culture, 1:377, 381, 418; Alexander, Evidences of Christianity, 22; Calderwood, +Philosophy of the Infinite, 512; Liddon, Elements of Religion, 50; Methodist Quar. Rev., +Jan. 1875:1; J. F. Clark, Ten Great Religions, 2:17-21. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Its necessity.</head> + +<p> +That <hi rend='italic'>the knowledge of God's existence answers the second criterion +of necessity</hi>, will be seen by considering: +</p> + +<p> +A. That men, under circumstances fitted to call forth this knowledge, +cannot avoid recognizing the existence of God. In contemplating finite +existence, there is inevitably suggested the idea of an infinite Being as its +correlative. Upon occasion of the mind's perceiving its own finiteness, +dependence, responsibility, it immediately and necessarily perceives the +existence of an infinite and unconditioned Being upon whom it is dependent +and to whom it is responsible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We could not recognize the finite as finite, except by comparing it with an already +existing standard—the Infinite. Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought, lect. 3—<q>We are +compelled by the constitution of our minds to believe in the existence of an Absolute +and Infinite Being—a belief which appears forced upon us as the complement of our +consciousness of the relative and finite.</q> Fisher, Journ. Chr. Philos., Jan. 1883:113—<q>Ego +and non-ego, each being conditioned by the other, presuppose unconditioned +being on which both are dependent. Unconditioned being is the silent presupposition +of all our knowing.</q> Perceived dependent being implies an independent; independent +being is perfectly self-determining; self-determination is personality; perfect self-determination +is infinite Personality. John Watson, in Philos. Rev., Sept. 1893:526—<q>There +is no consciousness of self apart from the consciousness of other selves and +things; and no consciousness of the world apart from the consciousness of the single +Reality presupposed in both.</q> E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, 64-68—In every act of +consciousness the primary elements are implied: <q>the idea of the object, or not-self; +the idea of the subject, or self; and the idea of the unity which is presupposed in the +difference of the self and not-self, and within which they act and react on each other.</q> +See Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 46, and Moral Philos., 77; Hopkins, Outline Study +of Man, 283-285; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:211. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. That men, in virtue of their humanity, have a capacity for religion. +This recognized capacity for religion is proof that the idea of God is a necessary +one. If the mind upon proper occasion did not evolve this idea, there +would be nothing in man to which religion could appeal. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>It is the suggestion of the Infinite that makes the line of the far horizon, seen over +land or sea, so much more impressive than the beauties of any limited landscape.</q> In +times of sudden shock and danger, this rational intuition becomes a presentative +intuition,—men become more conscious of God's existence than of the existence of +their fellow-men and they instinctively cry to God for help. In the commands and +reproaches of the moral nature the soul recognizes a Lawgiver and Judge whose voice +conscience merely echoes. Aristotle called man <q>a political animal</q>; it is still more +true, as Sabatier declares, that <q>man is incurably religious.</q> St. Bernard: <q>Noverim +me, noverim te.</q> O. P. Gifford: <q>As milk, from which under proper conditions cream +does not rise, is not milk, so the man, who upon proper occasion shows no knowledge +of God, is not man, but brute.</q> We must not however expect cream from frozen +milk. Proper environment and conditions are needed. +</p> + +<p> +It is the recognition of a divine Personality in nature which constitutes the greatest +merit and charm of Wordsworth's poetry. In his Tintern Abbey, he speaks of <q>A presence +<pb n='059'/><anchor id='Pg059'/> +that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something +far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And +the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky and in the mind of man: A motion +and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls +through all things.</q> Robert Browning sees God in humanity, as Wordsworth sees God +in nature. In his Hohenstiel-Schwangau he writes: <q>This is the glory, that in all +conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind—Not mine, but like mine—for the double +joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.</q> John Ruskin held that the foundation +of beauty in the world is the presence of God in it. In his youth he tells us that +he had <q>a continual perception of sanctity in the whole of nature, from the slightest +thing to the vastest—an instinctive awe mixed with delight, an indefinable thrill such +as we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence of a disembodied spirit.</q> But it +was not a disembodied, but an embodied, Spirit that he saw. Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine, +§ 7—<q>Unless education and culture were preceded by an innate consciousness of +God as an operative predisposition, there would be nothing for education and culture +to work upon.</q> On Wordsworth's recognition of a divine personality in nature, see +Knight, Studies, 282-317, 405-426; Hutton, Essays, 2:113. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. That he who denies God's existence must tacitly assume that existence +in his very argument, by employing logical processes whose validity rests +upon the fact of God's existence. The full proof of this belongs under the +next head. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>I am an atheist, God knows</q>—was the absurd beginning of an argument to disprove +the divine existence. Cutler, Beginnings of Ethics, 22—<q>Even the Nihilists, +whose first principle is that God and duty are great bugbears to be abolished, assume +that God and duty exist, and they are impelled by a sense of duty to abolish them.</q> +Mrs. Browning, The Cry of the Human: <q><q>There is no God,</q> the foolish saith; But +none, <q>There is no sorrow</q>; And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow: +Eyes which the preacher could not school By wayside graves are raised; And lips +say, <q>God be pitiful,</q> Who ne'er said, <q>God be praised.</q></q> Dr. W. W. Keen, when called +to treat an Irishman's aphasia, said: <q>Well, Dennis, how are you?</q> <q>Oh, doctor, I +cannot spake!</q> <q>But, Dennis, you <emph>are</emph> speaking.</q> <q>Oh, doctor, it's many a word I +cannot spake!</q> <q>Well, Dennis, now I will try you. See if you cannot say, <q>Horse.</q></q> +<q>Oh, doctor dear, <q>horse</q> is the very word I cannot spake!</q> On this whole section, +see A. M. Fairbairn, Origin and Development of the Idea of God, in Studies in Philos. of +Relig. and History; Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 45; Bishop Temple, Bampton +Lectures, 1884:37-65. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Its logical independence and priority.</head> + +<p> +That <hi rend='italic'>the knowledge of God's existence answers the third criterion +of logical independence and priority</hi>, may be shown as follows: +</p> + +<p> +A. It is presupposed in all other knowledge as its logical condition and +foundation. The validity of the simplest mental acts, such as sense-perception, +self-consciousness, and memory, depends upon the assumption that a +God exists who has so constituted our minds that they give us knowledge +of things as they are. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. of Religion, 1:88—<q>The ground of science and of cognition generally +is to be found neither in the subject nor in the object <hi rend='italic'>per se</hi>, but only in the divine +thinking that combines the two, which, as the common ground of the forms of thinking +in all finite minds, and of the forms of being in all things, makes possible the correspondence +or agreement between the former and the latter, or in a word makes knowledge +of truth possible.</q> 91—<q>Religious belief is presupposed in all scientific knowledge +as the basis of its possibility.</q> This is the thought of <emph>Psalm 36:10—<q>In thy light shall +we see light.</q></emph> A. J. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 303—<q>The uniformity of nature cannot +be proved from experience, for it is what makes proof from experience possible.... +Assume it, and we shall find that facts conform to it.... 309—The uniformity +of nature can be established only by the aid of that principle itself, and is +necessarily involved in all attempts to prove it.... There must be a God, to justify +our confidence in innate ideas.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='060'/><anchor id='Pg060'/> + +<p> +Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 276—<q>Reflection shows that the community +of individual intelligences is possible only through an all-embracing Intelligence, +the source and creator of finite minds.</q> Science rests upon the postulate of a +world-order. Huxley: <q>The object of science is the discovery of the rational order +which pervades the universe.</q> This rational order presupposes a rational Author. +Dubois, in New Englander, Nov. 1890:468—<q>We assume uniformity and continuity, +or we can have no science. An intelligent Creative Will is a genuine scientific hypothesis +[postulate?], suggested by analogy and confirmed by experience, not contradicting +the fundamental law of uniformity but accounting for it.</q> Ritchie, Darwin and +Hegel, 18—<q>That nature is a system, is the assumption underlying the earliest mythologies: +to fill up this conception is the aim of the latest science.</q> Royce, Relig. Aspect +of Philosophy, 435—<q>There is such a thing as error; but error is inconceivable unless +there be such a thing as truth; and truth is inconceivable unless there be a seat of +truth, an infinite all-including Thought or Mind; therefore such a Mind exists.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The more complex processes of the mind, such as induction and deduction, +can be relied on only by presupposing a thinking Deity who has +made the various parts of the universe and the various aspects of truth to +correspond to each other and to the investigating faculties of man. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We argue from one apple to the others on the tree. Newton argued from the fall of +an apple to gravitation in the moon and throughout the solar system. Rowland +argued from the chemistry of our world to that of Sirius. In all such argument there +is assumed a unifying thought and a thinking Deity. This is Tyndall's <q>scientific use +of the imagination.</q> <q>Nourished,</q> he says, <q>by knowledge partially won, and +bounded by coöperant reason, imagination is the mightiest instrument of the physical +discoverer.</q> What Tyndall calls <q>imagination</q>, is really insight into the thoughts of +God, the great Thinker. It prepares the way for logical reasoning,—it is not the product +of mere reasoning. For this reason Goethe called imagination <q>die Vorschule +des Denkens,</q> or <q>thought's preparatory school.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, 23—<q>Induction is syllogism, with the +immutable attributes of God for a constant term.</q> Porter, Hum. Intellect, 492—<q>Induction +rests upon the assumption, as it demands for its ground, that a personal or +thinking Deity exists</q>; 658—<q>It has no meaning or validity unless we assume that the +universe is constituted in such a way as to presuppose an absolute and unconditioned +originator of its forces and laws</q>; 662—<q>We analyze the several processes of +knowledge into their underlying assumptions, and we find that the assumption which +underlies them all is that of a self-existent Intelligence who not only can be known by +man, but must be known by man in order that man may know anything besides</q>; see +also pages 486, 508, 509, 518, 519, 585, 616. Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 81—<q>The +processes of reflective thought imply that the universe is grounded in, and is the manifestation +of, reason</q>; 560—<q>The existence of a personal God is a necessary datum of +scientific knowledge.</q> So also, Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Origin of Christianity, +564, and in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:129, 130. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. Our primitive belief in final cause, or, in other words, our conviction +that all things have their ends, that design pervades the universe, +involves a belief in God's existence. In assuming that there is a universe, +that the universe is a rational whole, a system of thought-relations, we +assume the existence of an absolute Thinker, of whose thought the +universe is an expression. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. of Religion, 1:81—<q>The real can only be thinkable if it is realized +thought, a thought previously thought, which our thinking has only to think again. +Therefore the real, in order to be thinkable for us, must be the realized thought of the +creative thinking of an eternal divine Reason which is presented to our cognitive +thinking.</q> Royce, World and Individual, 2:41—<q>Universal teleology constitutes the +essence of all facts.</q> A. H. Bradford, The Age of Faith, 142—<q>Suffering and sorrow +are universal. Either God could prevent them and would not, and therefore he is +neither beneficent nor loving; or else he cannot prevent them and therefore something +is greater than God, and therefore there is no God? But here is the use of reason in +<pb n='061'/><anchor id='Pg061'/> +the individual reasoning. Reasoning in the individual necessitates the absolute or +universal reason. If there is the absolute reason, then the universe and history are +ordered and administered in harmony with reason; then suffering and sorrow can be +neither meaningless nor final, since that would be the contradiction of reason. That +cannot be possible in the universal and absolute which contradicts reason in man.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. Our primitive belief in moral obligation, or, in other words, our +conviction that right has universal authority, involves the belief in God's +existence. In assuming that the universe is a moral whole, we assume the +existence of an absolute Will, of whose righteousness the universe is an +expression. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. of Religion, 1:88—<q>The ground of moral obligation is found +neither in the subject nor in society, but only in the universal or divine Will that combines +both.... 103—The idea of God is the unity of the true and the good, or of the two +highest ideas which our reason thinks as theoretical reason, but demands as practical +reason.... In the idea of God we find the only synthesis of the world that <emph>is</emph>—the +world of science, and of the world that <emph>ought to be</emph>—the world of religion.</q> Seth, +Ethical Principles, 425—<q>This is not a mathematical demonstration. Philosophy never +is an exact science. Rather is it offered as the only sufficient foundation of the moral +life.... The life of goodness ... is a life based on the conviction that its source and its +issues are in the Eternal and the Infinite.</q> As finite truth and goodness are comprehensible +only in the light of some absolute principle which furnishes for them an ideal +standard, so finite beauty is inexplicable except as there exists a perfect standard with +which it may be compared. The beautiful is more than the agreeable or the useful. +Proportion, order, harmony, unity in diversity—all these are characteristics of +beauty. But they all imply an intellectual and spiritual Being, from whom they proceed +and by whom they can be measured. Both physical and moral beauty, in finite +things and beings, are symbols and manifestations of Him who is the author and lover +of beauty, and who is himself the infinite and absolute Beauty. The beautiful in +nature and in art shows that the idea of God's existence is logically independent and +prior. See Cousin, The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, 140-153; Kant, Metaphysic of +Ethics, who holds that belief in God is the necessary presupposition of the belief in duty. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +To repeat these four points in another form—the intuition of an Absolute +Reason is (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the necessary presupposition of all other knowledge, so +that we cannot know anything else to exist except by assuming first of all +that God exists; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the necessary basis of all logical thought, so that we +cannot put confidence in any one of our reasoning processes except by +taking for granted that a thinking Deity has constructed our minds with +reference to the universe and to truth; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the necessary implication of our +primitive belief in design, so that we can assume all things to exist for a +purpose, only by making the prior assumption that a purposing God exists—can +regard the universe as a thought, only by postulating the existence +of an absolute Thinker; and (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) the necessary foundation of our conviction +of moral obligation, so that we can believe in the universal authority +of right, only by assuming that there exists a God of righteousness who +reveals his will both in the individual conscience and in the moral universe +at large. We cannot <emph>prove</emph> that God is; but we can show that, in order to +show the existence of any knowledge, thought, reason, conscience, in man, +man must <emph>assume</emph> that God is. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As Jacobi said of the beautiful: <q>Es kann gewiesen aber nicht bewiesen werden</q>—it +can be shown, but not proved. Bowne, Metaphysics, 472—<q>Our objective knowledge +of the finite must rest upon ethical trust in the infinite</q>; 480—<q>Theism is the +absolute postulate of all knowledge, science and philosophy</q>; <q>God is the most +certain fact of objective knowledge.</q> Ladd, Bib. Sac., Oct. 1877:611-616—<q>Cogito, +ergo Deus est. We are obliged to postulate a not-ourselves which makes for rationality, +<pb n='062'/><anchor id='Pg062'/> +as well as for righteousness.</q> W. T. Harris: <q>Even natural science is impossible, +where philosophy has not yet taught that reason made the world, and that nature is a +revelation of the rational.</q> Whately, Logic, 270; New Englander, Oct. 1871, art. on +Grounds of Confidence in Inductive Reasoning; Bib. Sac., 7:415-425; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, +1:197; Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, ch. <q>Zweck</q>; Ulrici, +Gott und die Natur, 540-626; Lachelier, Du Fondement de l'Induction, 78. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, +see Janet, Final Causes, 174, note, and 457-464, who holds final cause to be, not an +intuition, but the result of applying the principle of causality to cases which mechanical +laws alone will not explain. +</p> + +<p> +Pascal: <q>Nature confounds the Pyrrhonist, and Reason confounds the Dogmatist. +We have an incapacity of demonstration, which the former cannot overcome; we +have a conception of truth which the latter cannot disturb.</q> <q>There is no Unbelief! +Whoever says. <q>To-morrow,</q> <q>The Unknown,</q> <q>The Future,</q> trusts that Power alone. +Nor dares disown.</q> Jones, Robert Browning, 314—<q>We cannot indeed prove God as +the conclusion of a syllogism, for he is the primary hypothesis of all proof.</q> Robert +Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau: <q>I know that he is there, as I am here, By the +same proof, which seems no proof at all, It so exceeds familiar forms of proof</q>; +Paracelsus, 27—<q>To know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the +imprisoned splendor may escape Than in effecting entrance for a light Supposed to be +without.</q> Tennyson, Holy Grail: <q>Let visions of the night or day Come as they will, +and many a time they come.... In moments when he feels he cannot die, And knows +himself no vision to himself, Nor the high God a vision, nor that One Who rose +again</q>; The Ancient Sage, 548—<q>Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son! Nor +canst thou prove the world thou movest in. Thou canst not prove that thou art body +alone, Nor canst Thou prove that thou art spirit alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou +art both in one. Thou canst not prove that thou art immortal, no, Nor yet that thou +art mortal. Nay, my son, thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee, Am not +thyself in converse with thyself. For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet +disproven: Wherefore be thou wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling +to Faith beyond the forms of Faith.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Other Supposed Sources of our Idea of God's Existence.</head> + +<p> +Our proof that the idea of God's existence is a rational intuition will not +be complete, until we show that attempts to account in other ways for the +origin of the idea are insufficient, and require as their presupposition the +very intuition which they would supplant or reduce to a secondary place. +We claim that it cannot be derived from any other source than an original +cognitive power of the mind. +</p> + +<p> +1. Not from external revelation,—whether communicated (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) through +the Scriptures, or (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>)through tradition; for, unless man had from another +source a previous knowledge of the existence of a God from whom such a +revelation might come, the revelation itself could have no authority for +him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) See Gillespie, Necessary Existence of God, 10; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:117; H. B. +Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 18—<q>A revelation takes for granted that he to whom it +is made has some knowledge of God, though it may enlarge and purify that +knowledge.</q> We cannot prove God from the authority of the Scriptures, and then also +prove the Scriptures from the authority of God. The very idea of Scripture as a revelation +presupposes belief in a God who can make it. Newman Smyth, in New +Englander, 1878:355—We cannot derive from a sun-dial our knowledge of the existence +of a sun. The sun-dial presupposes the sun, and cannot be understood without +previous knowledge of the sun. Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2:103—<q>The voice of the +divine ego does not first come to the consciousness of the individual ego from without; +rather does every external revelation presuppose already this inner one; there +must echo out from within man something kindred to the outer revelation, in order +to its being recognized and accepted as divine.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Fairbairn, Studies in Philos. of Relig. and Hist., 21, 22—<q>If man is dependent on an +outer revelation for his idea of God, then he must have what Schelling happily termed +<pb n='063'/><anchor id='Pg063'/> +<q>an original atheism of consciousness.</q> Religion cannot, in that case, be rooted in the +nature of man,—it must be implanted from without.</q> Schurman, Belief in God, 78—<q>A +primitive revelation of God could only mean that God had endowed man with the +capacity of apprehending his divine original. This capacity, like every other, is +innate, and like every other, it realizes itself only in the presence of appropriate conditions.</q> +Clarke, Christian Theology, 112—<q>Revelation cannot demonstrate God's +existence, for it must assume it; but it will manifest his existence and character to +men, and will serve them as the chief source of certainty concerning him, for it will +teach them what they could not know by other means.</q> +</p> + +<p> +(b) Nor does our idea of God come primarily from tradition, for <q>tradition can perpetuate +only what has already been originated</q> (Patton). If the knowledge thus +handed down is the knowledge of a primitive revelation, then the argument just stated +applies—that very revelation presupposed in those who first received it, and presupposes +in those to whom it is handed down, some knowledge of a Being from whom +such a revelation might come. If the knowledge thus handed down is simply +knowledge of the results of the reasonings of the race, then the knowledge of God +comes originally from reasoning—an explanation which we consider further on. On +the traditive theory of religion, see Flint, Theism, 23, 338; Cocker, Christianity and +Greek Philosophy, 86-96; Fairbairn, Studies in Philos. of Relig. and Hist., 14, 15; Bowen, +Metaph. and Ethics, 453, and in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1876; Pfleiderer, Religionsphilos., 312-322. +</p> + +<p> +Similar answers must be returned to many common explanations of man's belief in +God: <q>Primus in orbe deos fecit timor</q>; Imagination made religion; Priests +invented religion; Religion is a matter of imitation and fashion. But we ask again: +What caused the fear? Who made the imagination? What made priests possible? +What made imitation and fashion natural? To say that man worships, merely because +he sees other men worshiping, is as absurd as to say that a horse eats hay because he +sees other horses eating it. There must be a hunger in the soul to be satisfied, or +external things would never attract man to worship. Priests could never impose +upon men so continuously, unless there was in human nature a universal belief in a +God who might commission priests as his representatives. Imagination itself requires +some basis of reality, and a larger basis as civilization advances. The fact that belief in +God's existence gets a wider hold upon the race with each added century, shows that, +instead of fear having caused belief in God, the truth is that belief in God has caused +fear; indeed, <emph><q>the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom</q> (Ps. 111:10)</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Not from experience,—whether this mean (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the sense-perception +and reflection of the individual (Locke), (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the accumulated results of the +sensations and associations of past generations of the race (Herbert Spencer), +or (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the actual contact of our sensitive nature with God, the supersensible +reality, through the religious feeling (Newman Smyth). +</p> + +<p> +The first form of this theory is inconsistent with the fact that the idea +of God is not the idea of a sensible or material object, nor a combination +of such ideas. Since the spiritual and infinite are direct opposites of the +material and finite, no experience of the latter can account for our idea of +the former. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +With Locke (Essay on Hum. Understanding, 2:1:4), experience is the passive reception +of ideas by sensation or by reflection. Locke's <q>tabula rasa</q> theory mistakes the +occasion of our primitive ideas for their cause. To his statement: <q>Nihil est in intellectu +nisi quod ante fuerit in sensu,</q> Leibnitz replied: <q>Nisi intellectus ipse.</q> +Consciousness is sometimes called the source of our knowledge of God. But consciousness, +as simply an accompanying knowledge of ourselves and our states, is not +properly the source of any other knowledge. The German <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Gottesbewusstsein</foreign> = not +<q>consciousness of God,</q> but <q>knowledge of God</q>; <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Bewusstsein</foreign> here = not a <q>conknowing,</q> +but a <q>beknowing</q>; see Porter, Human Intellect, 86; Cousin, True, +Beautiful and Good, 48, 49. +</p> + +<p> +Fraser, Locke, 143-147—Sensations are the bricks, and association the mortar, of the +mental house. Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 47—<q>Develope language +by allowing sounds to associate and evolve meaning for themselves? Yet this is the +exact parallel of the philosophy which aims to build intelligence out of sensation....52—One +<pb n='064'/><anchor id='Pg064'/> +who does not know how to read would look in vain for meaning in a +printed page, and in vain would he seek to help his failure by using strong spectacles.</q> +Yet even if the idea of God were a product of experience, we should not be warranted +in rejecting it as irrational. See Brooks, Foundations of Zoölogy, 132—<q>There is no +antagonism between those who attribute knowledge to experience and those who +attribute it to our innate reason; between those who attribute the development of the +germ to mechanical conditions and those who attribute it to the inherent potency of +the germ itself; between those who hold that all nature was latent in the cosmic +vapor and those who believe that everything in nature is immediately intended rather +than predetermined.</q> All these may be methods of the immanent God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The second form of the theory is open to the objection that the very first +experience of the first man, equally with man's latest experience, presupposes +this intuition, as well as the other intuitions, and therefore cannot be +the cause of it. Moreover, even though this theory of its origin were correct, +it would still be impossible to think of the object of the intuition as +not existing, and the intuition would still represent to us the highest measure +of certitude at present attainable by man. If the evolution of ideas is +toward truth instead of falsehood, it is the part of wisdom to act upon the +hypothesis that our primitive belief is veracious. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Martineau, Study, 2:26—<q>Nature is as worthy of trust in her processes, as in her +gifts.</q> Bowne, Examination of Spencer, 163, 164—<q>Are we to seek truth in the minds +of pre-human apes, or in the blind stirrings of some primitive pulp? In that case we +can indeed put away all our science, but we must put away the great doctrine of evolution +along with it. The experience-philosophy cannot escape this alternative: either +the positive deliverances of our mature consciousness must be accepted as they stand, +or all truth must be declared impossible.</q> See also Harris, Philos. Basis Theism, 137-142. +</p> + +<p> +Charles Darwin, in a letter written a year before his death, referring to his doubts as to +the existence of God, asks: <q>Can we trust to the convictions of a monkey's mind?</q> We +may reply: <q>Can we trust the conclusions of one who was once a baby?</q> Bowne, +Ethics, 3—<q>The genesis and emergence of an idea are one thing; its validity is quite +another. The logical value of chemistry cannot be decided by reciting its beginnings +in alchemy; and the logical value of astronomy is independent of the fact that it began +in astrology.... 11—Even if man came from the ape, we need not tremble for the +validity of the multiplication-table or of the Golden Rule. If we have moral insight, +it is no matter how we got it; and if we have no such insight, there is no help in any +psychological theory.... 159—We must not appeal to savages and babies to find +what is natural to the human mind.... In the case of anything that is under the +law of development we can find its true nature, not by going back to its crude beginnings, +but by studying the finished outcome.</q> Dawson, Mod. Ideas of Evolution, 13—<q>If +the idea of God be the phantom of an apelike brain, can we trust to reason or conscience +in any other matter? May not science and philosophy themselves be similar +phantasies, evolved by mere chance and unreason?</q> Even though man came from +the ape, there is no explaining his ideas by the ideas of the ape: <q>A man 's a man for +a' that.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We must judge beginnings by endings, not endings by beginnings. It matters not +how the development of the eye took place nor how imperfect was the first sense of +sight, if the eye now gives us correct information of external objects. So it matters +not how the intuitions of right and of God originated, if they now give us knowledge +of objective truth. We must take for granted that evolution of ideas is not from +sense to nonsense. G. H. Lewes, Study of Psychology, 122—<q>We can understand the +amœba and the polyp only by a light reflected from the study of man.</q> Seth, Ethical +Principles, 429—<q>The oak explains the acorn even more truly than the acorn explains +the oak.</q> Sidgwick: <q>No one appeals from the artist's sense of beauty to the child's. +Higher mathematics are no less true, because they can be apprehended only by trained +intellect. No strange importance attaches to what was <emph>first</emph> felt or thought.</q> Robert +Browning, Paracelsus: <q>Man, once descried, imprints forever His presence on all lifeless +things.... A supplementary reflux of light Illustrates all the inferior grades, +explains Each back step in the circle.</q> Man, with his higher ideas, shows the meaning +and content of all that led up to him. He is the last round of the ascending ladder, +and from this highest product and from his ideas we may infer what his Maker is. +</p> + +<pb n='065'/><anchor id='Pg065'/> + +<p> +Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 162, 245—<q>Evolution simply gave man such <emph>height</emph> that he +could at last discern the stars of moral truth which had previously been below the +horizon. This is very different from saying that moral truths are merely transmitted +products of the experiences of utility.... The germ of the idea of God, as of the +idea of right, must have been in man just so soon as he became man,—the brute's gaining +it turned him into man. Reason is not simply a register of physical phenomena +and of experiences of pleasure and pain: it is creative also. It discerns the oneness of +things and the supremacy of God.</q> Sir Charles Lyell: <q>The presumption is enormous +that all our faculties, though liable to err, are true in the main and point to real +objects. The religious faculty in man is one of the strongest of all. It existed in the +earliest ages, and instead of wearing out before advancing civilization, it grows +stronger and stronger, and is to-day more developed among the highest races than it +ever was before. I think we may safely trust that it points to a great truth.</q> Fisher, +Nat. and Meth. of Rev., 137, quotes Augustine: <q>Securus judicat orbis terrarum,</q> +and tells us that the intellect is assumed to be an organ of knowledge, however the +intellect may have been evolved. But if the intellect is worthy of trust, so is the moral +nature. George A. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 103—<q>To Herbert Spencer, human +history is but an incident of natural history, and force is supreme. To Christianity +nature is only the beginning, and man the consummation. Which gives the higher +revelation of the life of the tree—the seed, or the fruit?</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The third form of the theory seems to make God a sensuous object, to +reverse the proper order of knowing and feeling, to ignore the fact that in +all feeling there is at least some knowledge of an object, and to forget that +the validity of this very feeling can be maintained only by previously +assuming the existence of a rational Deity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Newman Smyth tells us that feeling comes first; the idea is secondary. Intuitive ideas +are not denied, but they are declared to be direct reflections, in thought, of the feelings. +They are the mind's immediate perception of what it feels to exist. Direct knowledge +of God by intuition is considered to be idealistic, reaching God by inference is regarded +as rationalistic, in its tendency. See Smyth, The Religious Feeling; reviewed by +Harris, in New Englander, Jan., 1878: reply by Smyth, in New Englander, May, 1878. +</p> + +<p> +We grant that, even in the case of unregenerate men, great peril, great joy, great sin +often turn the rational intuition of God into a presentative intuition. The presentative +intuition, however, cannot be affirmed to be common to all men. It does not furnish +the foundation or explanation of a universal capacity for religion. Without the +rational intuition, the presentative would not be possible, since it is only the rational +that enables man to receive and to interpret the presentative. The very trust that we +put in feeling presupposes an intuitive belief in a true and good God. Tennyson said +in 1869: <q>Yes, it is true that there are moments when the flesh is nothing to me; when +I know and feel the flesh to be the vision; God and the spiritual is the real; it belongs +to me more than the hand and the foot. You may tell me that my hand and my foot +are only imaginary symbols of my existence,—I could believe you; but you never, +never can convince me that the <emph>I</emph> is not an eternal Reality, and that the spiritual is not +the real and true part of me.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. Not from reasoning,—because +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The actual rise of this knowledge in the great majority of minds is +not the result of any conscious process of reasoning. On the other hand, +upon occurrence of the proper conditions, it flashes upon the soul with the +quickness and force of an immediate revelation. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The strength of men's faith in God's existence is not proportioned to +the strength of the reasoning faculty. On the other hand, men of greatest +logical power are often inveterate sceptics, while men of unwavering faith +are found among those who cannot even understand the arguments for +God's existence. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) There is more in this knowledge than reasoning could ever have +<pb n='066'/><anchor id='Pg066'/> +furnished. Men do not limit their belief in God to the just conclusions of +argument. The arguments for the divine existence, valuable as they are for +purposes to be shown hereafter, are not sufficient by themselves to warrant +our conviction that there exists an infinite and absolute Being. It will +appear upon examination that the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> argument is capable of proving +only an abstract and ideal proposition, but can never conduct us to the +existence of a real Being. It will appear that the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a posteriori</foreign> arguments, +from merely finite existence, can never demonstrate the existence of the +infinite. In the words of Sir Wm. Hamilton (Discussions, 23)—<q>A demonstration +of the absolute from the relative is logically absurd, as in such +a syllogism we must collect in the conclusion what is not distributed in +the premises</q>—in short, from finite premises we cannot draw an infinite +conclusion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Whately, Logic, 290-292; Jevons, Lessons in Logic, 81; Thompson, Outline Laws of +Thought, sections 82-92; Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 60-69, and Moral Philosophy, 238; +Turnbull, in Bap. Quarterly, July, 1872:271; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 239; Dove, Logic +of Christian Faith, 21. Sir Wm. Hamilton: <q>Departing from the particular, we admit +that we cannot, in our highest generalizations, rise above the finite.</q> Dr. E. G. +Robinson: <q>The human mind turns out larger grists than are ever put in at the hopper.</q> +There is more in the idea of God than could have come out so small a knot-hole +as human reasoning. A single word, a chance remark, or an attitude of prayer, suggests +the idea to a child. Helen Keller told Phillips Brooks that she had always known +that there was a God, but that she had not known his name. Ladd, Philosophy of +Mind, 119—<q>It is a foolish assumption that nothing can be certainly known unless it +be reached as the result of a conscious syllogistic process, or that the more complicated +and subtle this process is, the more sure is the conclusion. Inferential knowledge +is always dependent upon the superior certainty of immediate knowledge.</q> +George M. Duncan, in Memorial of Noah Porter, 246—<q>All deduction rests either on +the previous process of induction, or on the intuitions of time and space which involve +the Infinite and Absolute.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Neither do men arrive at the knowledge of God's existence by inference; +for inference is condensed syllogism, and, as a form of reasoning, is +equally open to the objection just mentioned. We have seen, moreover, +that all logical processes are based upon the assumption of God's existence. +Evidently that which is presupposed in all reasoning cannot itself be proved +by reasoning. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +By inference, we of course mean mediate inference, for in immediate inference (<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, +<q>All good rulers are just; therefore no unjust rulers are good</q>) there is no reasoning, +and no progress in thought. Mediate inference is reasoning—is condensed syllogism; +and what is so condensed may be expanded into regular logical form. Deductive inference: +<q>A negro is a fellow-creature; therefore he who strikes a negro strikes a fellow-creature.</q> +Inductive inference: <q>The first finger is before the second; therefore it is +before the third.</q> On inference, see Martineau, Essays, 1:105-108; Porter, Human +Intellect, 444-448; Jevons, Principles of Science, 1:14, 136-139, 168, 262. +</p> + +<p> +Flint, in his Theism, 77, and Herbert, in his Mod. Realism Examined, would reach the +knowledge of God's existence by inference. The latter says God is not demonstrable, +but his existence is inferred, like the existence of our fellow men. But we reply that in +this last case we infer only the finite from the finite, while the difficulty in the case of +God is in inferring the infinite from the finite. This very process of reasoning, moreover, +presupposes the existence of God as the absolute Reason, in the way already +indicated. +</p> + +<p> +Substantially the same error is committed by H. B. Smith, Introd. to Chr. Theol., 84-133, +and by Diman, Theistic Argument, 316, 364, both of whom grant an intuitive element, +but use it only to eke out the insufficiency of reasoning. They consider that the intuition +gives us only an abstract idea, which contains in itself no voucher for the existence +<pb n='067'/><anchor id='Pg067'/> +of an actual being corresponding to the idea, and that we reach real being only by +inference from the facts of our own spiritual natures and of the outward world. But +we reply, in the words of McCosh, that <q>the intuitions are primarily directed to individual +objects.</q> We know, not the infinite in the abstract, but infinite space and time, +and the infinite God. See McCosh, Intuitions, 26, 199, who, however, holds the view here +combated. +</p> + +<p> +Schurman, Belief in God, 43—<q>I am unable to assign to our belief in God a higher +certainty than that possessed by the working hypotheses of science.... 57—The +nearest approach made by science to our hypothesis of the existence of God lies in the +assertion of the universality of law ... based on the conviction of the unity and +systematic connection of all reality.... 64—This unity can be found only in self-conscious +spirit.</q> The fault of this reasoning is that it gives us nothing necessary or +absolute. Instances of working hypotheses are the nebular hypothesis in astronomy, +the law of gravitation, the atomic theory in chemistry, the principle of evolution. No +one of these is logically independent or prior. Each of them is provisional, and each +may be superseded by new discovery. Not so with the idea of God. This idea is presupposed +by all the others, as the condition of every mental process and the guarantee +of its validity. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Contents of this Intuition.</head> + +<p> +1. In this fundamental knowledge <emph>that</emph> God is, it is necessarily implied +that to some extent men know intuitively <emph>what</emph> God is, namely, (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) a +Reason in which their mental processes are grounded; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) a Power above +them upon which they are dependent; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) a Perfection which imposes law +upon their moral natures; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) a Personality which they may recognize in +prayer and worship. +</p> + +<p> +In maintaining that we have a rational intuition of God, we by no means +imply that a presentative intuition of God is impossible. Such a presentative +intuition was perhaps characteristic of unfallen man; it does belong +at times to the Christian; it will be the blessing of heaven (Mat. 5:8—<q>the +pure in heart ... shall see God</q>; Rev. 22:4—<q>they shall see his +face</q>). Men's experiences of face-to-face apprehension of God, in danger +and guilt, give some reason to believe that a presentative knowledge of +God is the normal condition of humanity. But, as this presentative intuition +of God is not in our present state universal, we here claim only that all +men have a rational intuition of God. +</p> + +<p> +It is to be remembered, however, that the loss of love to God has greatly +obscured even this rational intuition, so that the revelation of nature and +the Scriptures is needed to awaken, confirm and enlarge it, and the special +work of the Spirit of Christ to make it the knowledge of friendship and +communion. Thus from knowing about God, we come to know God (John +17:3—<q>This is life eternal, that they should know thee</q>; 2 Tim. 1:12—<q>I +know him whom I have believed</q>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Plato said, for substance, that there can be no ὅτι οἶδεν without something of the +ἁ οἶδεν. Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, 208—<q>By rational intuition man knows +that absolute Being <emph>exists</emph>; his knowledge of <emph>what</emph> it is, is progressive with his progressive +knowledge of man and of nature.</q> Hutton, Essays: <q>A haunting presence besets +man behind and before. He cannot evade it. It gives new meanings to his thoughts, +new terror to his sins. It becomes intolerable. He is moved to set up some idol, carved +out of his own nature, that will take its place—a non-moral God who will not disturb +his dream of rest. It is a righteous Life and Will, and not the mere <emph>idea</emph> of righteousness +that stirs men so.</q> Porter, Hum. Int., 661—<q>The Absolute is a thinking Agent.</q> The +intuition does not grow in certainty; what grows is the mind's quickness in applying +it and power of expressing it. The intuition is not complex; what is complex is the +Being intuitively cognized. See Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 232; Lowndes, Philos. +<pb n='068'/><anchor id='Pg068'/> +of Primary Beliefs, 108-112; Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 157—Latent faculty of speech is +called forth by speech of others; the choked-up well flows again when debris is cleared +away. Bowen, in Bib. Sac., 33:740-754; Bowne, Theism, 79. +</p> + +<p> +Knowledge of a person is turned into personal knowledge by actual communication or +revelation. First, comes the intuitive knowledge of God possessed by all men—the +assumption that there exists a Reason, Power, Perfection, Personality, that makes correct +thinking and acting possible. Secondly, comes the knowledge of God's being and +attributes which nature and Scripture furnish. Thirdly, comes the personal and presentative +knowledge derived from actual reconciliation and intercourse with God, +through Christ and the Holy Spirit. Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 208—<q>Christian +experience verifies the claims of doctrine by experiment,—so transforming +probable knowledge into real knowledge.</q> Biedermann, quoted by Pfleiderer, Grundriss, +18—<q>God reveals himself to the human spirit, 1. as its infinite <emph>Ground</emph>, in the reason; 2. as +its infinite <emph>Norm</emph>, in the conscience; 3. as its infinite <emph>Strength</emph>, in elevation to religious +truth, blessedness, and freedom.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Shall I object to this Christian experience, because only comparatively few have it, +and I am not among the number? Because I have not seen the moons of Jupiter, shall +I doubt the testimony of the astronomer to their existence? Christian experience, like +the sight of the moons of Jupiter, is attainable by all. Clarke, Christian Theology, 113—<q>One +who will have full proof of the good God's reality must put it to the experimental +test. He must take the good God for real, and receive the confirmation that will +follow. When faith reaches out after God, it finds him.... They who have found +him will be the sanest and truest of their kind, and their convictions will be among the +safest convictions of man.... Those who live in fellowship with the good God will +grow in goodness, and will give practical evidence of his existence aside from their oral +testimony.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. The Scriptures, therefore, do not attempt to prove the existence of +God, but, on the other hand, both assume and declare that the knowledge +that God is, is universal (Rom. 1:19-21, 28, 32; 2:15). God has inlaid +the evidence of this fundamental truth in the very nature of man, so that +nowhere is he without a witness. The preacher may confidently follow the +example of Scripture by assuming it. But he must also explicitly declare +it, as the Scripture does. <q>For the invisible things of him since the +creation of the world are clearly seen</q> (καθορᾶται—spiritually viewed); the +organ given for this purpose is the νοῦς (νοούμενα); but then—and this +forms the transition to our next division of the subject—they are <q>perceived +through the things that are made</q> (τοῖς ποιήμασιν, Rom. 1:20). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On <emph>Rom. 1:19-21</emph>, see Weiss, Bib. Theol. des N. T., 251, note; also commentaries of Meyer, +Alford, Tholuck, and Wordsworth; τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ = not <emph><q>that which may be known</q></emph> (Rev. +Vers.) but <emph><q>that which is known</q></emph> of God; νοούμενα καθορᾶται = are clearly seen in that they +are perceived by the reason—νοούμενα expresses the manner of the καθορᾶται (Meyer); +compare <emph>John 1:9</emph>; <emph>Acts 17:27</emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:28</emph>; <emph>2:15</emph>. On <emph>1 Cor. 15:34</emph>, see Calderwood, Philos. of +Inf., 466—ἀγνωσίαν Θεοῦ τινὲς ἔχουσι = do not possess the specially exalted knowledge of +God which belongs to believers in Christ (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1 Jo. 4:7—<q>every one that loveth is begotten of God, +and knoweth God</q></emph>). On <emph>Eph. 2:12</emph>, see Pope, Theology, 1:240—ἄθεοι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ is opposed to +being in Christ, and signifies rather forsaken of God, than denying him or entirely +ignorant of him. On Scripture passages, see Schmid, Bib. Theol. des N. T., 486; Hofmann, +Schriftbeweis, 1:62. +</p> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson: <q>The first statement of the Bible is, not that there is a God, but that +<emph><q>In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth</q> (Gen. 1:1)</emph>. The belief in God never was and +never can be the result of logical argument, else the Bible would give us proofs.</q> +Many texts relied upon as <emph>proofs</emph> of God's existence are simply <emph>explications</emph> of the idea +of God, as for example: <emph>Ps. 94:9, 10—<q>He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the +eye, shall he not see? He that chastiseth the nations, shall not he correct, even he that teacheth man knowledge?</q></emph> +Plato says that God holds the soul by its roots,—he therefore does not need to demonstrate +to the soul the fact of his existence. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 308, says +well that Scripture and preaching only interpret what is already in the heart which it +addresses: <q>Flinging a warm breath on the inward oracles hid in invisible ink, it renders +<pb n='069'/><anchor id='Pg069'/> +them articulate and dazzling as the handwriting on the wall. The divine Seer does +not convey to you <emph>his</emph> revelation, but qualifies you to receive <emph>your own</emph>. This mutual +relation is possible only through the common presence of God in the conscience of mankind.</q> +Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:195-220—<q>The earth and sky make the same +sensible impressions on the organs of a brute that they do upon those of a man; but +the brute never discerns the <emph><q>invisible things</q></emph> of God, his <emph><q>eternal power and godhood</q> (Rom. 1:20)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Our subconscious activity, so far as it is normal, is under the guidance of the immanent +Reason. Sensation, before it results in thought, has in it logical elements which +are furnished by mind—not ours, but that of the Infinite One. Christ, the Revealer +of God, reveals God in every man's mental life, and the Holy Spirit may be the principle +of self-consciousness in man as in God. Harris, God the Creator, tells us that <q>man +finds the Reason that is eternal and universal revealing itself in the exercise of his own +reason.</q> Savage, Life after Death, 268—<q>How do you know that your subliminal +consciousness does not tap Omniscience, and get at the facts of the universe?</q> +Savage negatives this suggestion, however, and wrongly favors the spirit-theory. For +his own experience, see pages 295-329 of his book. +</p> + +<p> +C. M. Barrows, in Proceedings of Soc. for Psychical Research, vol. 12, part 30, pages 34-36—<q>There +is a subliminal agent. What if this is simply one intelligent Actor, filling +the universe with his presence, as the ether fills space; the common Inspirer of all mankind, +a skilled Musician, presiding over many pipes and keys, and playing through each +what music he will? The subliminal self is a universal fountain of energy, and each man +is an outlet of the stream. Each man's personal self is contained in it, and thus each +man is made one with every other man. In that deep Force, the last fact behind which +analysis cannot go, all psychical and bodily effects find their common origin.</q> This +statement needs to be qualified by the assertion of man's ethical nature and distinct +personality; see section of this work on Ethical Monism, in chapter III. But there is +truth here like that which Coleridge sought to express in his Æolian Harp: <q>And what +if all of animated Nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into +thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul +of each, and God of all?</q> See F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality. +</p> + +<p> +Dorner, System of Theology, 1:75—<q>The consciousness of God is the true fastness +of our self-consciousness.... Since it is only in the God-conscious man that the +innermost personality comes to light, in like manner, by means of the interweaving of +that consciousness of God and of the world, the world is viewed in God (<q>sub specie +eternitatis</q>), and the certainty of the world first obtains its absolute security for the +spirit.</q> Royce, Spirit of Mod. Philosophy, synopsis in N. Y. Nation: <q>The one indubitable +fact is the existence of an infinite self, a Logos or World-mind (345). That it exists +is clear, I. Because idealism shows that real things are nothing more nor less than ideas, +or <q>possibilities of experience</q>; but a mere <q>possibility</q>, as such, is nothing, and a +world of <q>possible</q> experiences, in so far as it is real, must be a world of actual experience +to some self (367). If then there be a real world, it has all the while existed as +ideal and mental, even before it became known to the particular mind with which we +conceive it as coming into connection (368). II. But there is such a real world; for, +when I <emph>think</emph> of an object, when I <emph>mean</emph> it, I do not merely have in mind an idea +resembling it, for I aim at the object, I pick it out, I already in some measure possess +it. The object is then already present in essence to my hidden self (370). As truth +consists in knowledge of the conformity of a cognition to its object, that alone can know +a truth which includes within itself both idea and object. This inclusive Knower is the +Infinite Self (374). With this I am in essence identical (371); it is my larger self (372); +and this larger self alone <emph>is</emph> (379). It includes all reality, and we know other finite +minds, because we are one with them in its unity</q> (409). +</p> + +<p> +The experience of George John Romanes is instructive. For years he could recognize +no personal Intelligence controlling the universe. He made four mistakes: 1. +<emph>He forgot that only love can see</emph>, that God is not disclosed to the mere intellect, but only +to the whole man, to the integral mind, to what the Scripture calls <emph><q>the eyes of your heart</q> +(Eph. 1:18)</emph>. Experience of life taught him at last the weakness of mere reasoning, and +led him to depend more upon the affections and intuitions. Then, as one might say, he +gave the X-rays of Christianity a chance to photograph God upon his soul. 2. <emph>He began +at the wrong end</emph>, with matter rather than with mind, with cause and effect rather than +with right and wrong, and so got involved in the mechanical order and tried to interpret +the moral realm by it. The result was that instead of recognizing freedom, responsibility, +sin, guilt, he threw them out as pretenders. But study of conscience and will +<pb n='070'/><anchor id='Pg070'/> +set him right. He learned to take what be found instead of trying to turn it into something +else, and so came to interpret nature by spirit, instead of interpreting spirit by +nature. 3. <emph>He took the Cosmos by bits</emph>, instead of regarding it as a whole. His early thinking +insisted on finding design in each particular part, or nowhere. But his more mature +thought recognized wisdom and reason in the ordered whole. As he realized that this +is a universe, he could not get rid of the idea of an organizing Mind. He came to see +that the Universe, as a thought, implies a Thinker. 4. <emph>He fancied that nature excludes +God</emph>, instead of being only the method of God's working. When he learned how a thing +was done, he at first concluded that God had not done it. His later thought recognized +that God and nature are not mutually exclusive. So he came to find no difficulty even +in miracles and inspiration; for the God who is in man and of whose mind and will +nature is only the expression, can reveal himself, if need be, in special ways. So George +John Romanes came back to prayer, to Christ, to the church. +</p> + +<p> +On the general subject of intuition as connected with our idea of God, see Ladd, in +Bib. Sac., 1877:1-36, 611-616; 1878:619; Fisher, on Final Cause and Intuition, in Journ. +Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:113-134; Patton, on Genesis of Idea of God, in Jour. Christ. +Philos., Apl. 1883:283-307; McCosh, Christianity and Positivism, 124-140; Mansel, in +Encyc. Brit., 8th ed., vol. 14:604 and 615; Robert Hall, sermon on Atheism; Hutton, +on Atheism, in Essays, 1:3-37; Shairp, in Princeton Rev., March, 1881:264. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='071'/><anchor id='Pg071'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter II. Corroborative Evidences Of God's Existence.</head> + +<p> +Although the knowledge of God's existence is intuitive, it may be explicated +and confirmed by arguments drawn from the actual universe and +from the abstract ideas of the human mind. +</p> + +<p> +Remark 1. These arguments are probable, not demonstrative. For this +reason they supplement each other, and constitute a series of evidences +which is cumulative in its nature. Though, taken singly, none of them can +be considered absolutely decisive, they together furnish a corroboration +of our primitive conviction of God's existence, which is of great practical +value, and is in itself sufficient to bind the moral action of men. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Butler, Analogy, Introd., Bohn's ed., 72—Probable evidence admits of degrees, from +the highest moral certainty to the lowest presumption. Yet probability is the guide of +life. In matters of morals and religion, we are not to expect mathematical or demonstrative, +but only probable, evidence, and the slightest preponderance of such evidence +may be sufficient to bind our moral action. The truth of our religion, like the truth of +common matters, is to be judged by the whole evidence taken together; for probable +proofs, by being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Dove, +Logic of Christ. Faith, 24—Value of the arguments taken together is much greater +than that of any single one. Illustrated from water, air and food, together but not +separately, supporting life; value of £1000 note, not in paper, stamp, writing, signature, +taken separately. A whole bundle of rods cannot be broken, though each rod in the +bundle may be broken separately. The strength of the bundle is the strength of the +whole. Lord Bacon, Essay on Atheism: <q>A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to +atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For while +the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them +and go no further, but, when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked +together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.</q> Murphy, Scientific Bases of +Faith, 221-223—<q>The proof of a God and of a spiritual world which is to satisfy us +must consist in a number of different but converging lines of proof.</q> +</p> + +<p> +In a case where only circumstantial evidence is attainable, many lines of proof sometimes +converge, and though no one of the lines reaches the mark, the conclusion to +which they all point becomes the only rational one. To doubt that there is a London, +or that there was a Napoleon, would indicate insanity; yet London and Napoleon are +proved by only probable evidence. There is no constraining efficacy in the arguments +for God's existence; but the same can be said of all reasoning that is not demonstrative. +Another interpretation of the facts is <emph>possible</emph>, but no other conclusion is so +<emph>satisfactory</emph>, as that God is; see Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 129. Prof. +Rogers: <q>If in practical affairs we were to hesitate to act until we had absolute and +demonstrative certainty, we should never begin to move at all.</q> For this reason an +old Indian official advised a young Indian judge <q>always to give his verdict, but +always to avoid giving the grounds of it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 11-14—<q>Instead of doubting everything that can be +doubted, let us rather doubt nothing until we are compelled to doubt.... In society +we get on better by assuming that men are truthful, and by doubting only for special +reasons, than we should if we assumed that all men are liars, and believed them only +when compelled. So in all our investigations we make more progress if we assume +the truthfulness of the universe and of our own nature than we should if we doubted +both.... The first method seems the more rigorous, but it can be applied only to +<pb n='072'/><anchor id='Pg072'/> +mathematics, which is a purely subjective science. When we come to deal with +reality, the method brings thought to a standstill.... The law the logician lays down +is this: Nothing may be believed which is not proved. The law the mind actually +follows is this: Whatever the mind demands for the satisfaction of its subjective +interests and tendencies may be assumed as real, in default of positive disproof.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Remark 2. A consideration of these arguments may also serve to explicate +the contents of an intuition which has remained obscure and only half +conscious for lack of reflection. The arguments, indeed, are the efforts of +the mind that already has a conviction of God's existence to give to itself a +formal account of its belief. An exact estimate of their logical value and +of their relation to the intuition which they seek to express in syllogistic +form, is essential to any proper refutation of the prevalent atheistic and +pantheistic reasoning. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Diman, Theistic Argument, 363—<q>Nor have I claimed that the existence, even, of +this Being can be demonstrated as we demonstrate the abstract truths of science. I +have only claimed that the universe, as a great fact, demands a rational explanation, +and that the most rational explanation that can possibly be given is that furnished in +the conception of such a Being. In this conclusion reason rests, and refuses to rest in +any other.</q> Rückert: <q>Wer Gott nicht fühlt in sich und allen Lebenskreisen, Dem +werdet ihr nicht ihn beweisen mit Beweisen.</q> Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 307—<q>Theology +depends on noetic and empirical science to give the occasion on which the +idea of the Absolute Being arises, and to give content to the idea.</q> Andrew Fuller, +Part of Syst. of Divin., 4:283, questions <q>whether argumentation in favor of the existence +of God has not made more sceptics than believers.</q> So far as this is true, it is due +to an overstatement of the arguments and an exaggerated notion of what is to be +expected from them. See Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine, translation, 140; Ebrard, Dogmatik, +1:119, 120; Fisher, Essays on Supernatural Origin of Christianity, 572, 573; Van +Oosterzee, 238, 241. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Evidences of Christianity?</q> said Coleridge, <q>I am weary of the word.</q> The more +Christianity was <emph>proved</emph>, the less it was <emph>believed</emph>. The revival of religion under Whitefield +and Wesley did what all the apologists of the eighteenth century could not do,—it +quickened men's intuitions into life, and made them practically recognize God. +Martineau, Types, 2:231—Men can <q>bow the knee to the passing <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Zeitgeist</foreign>, while turning +the back to the consensus of all the ages</q>; Seat of Authority, 312—<q>Our reasonings +lead to explicit Theism because they start from implicit Theism.</q> Illingworth, +Div. and Hum. Personality, 81—<q>The proofs are ... attempts to account for and +explain and justify something that already exists; to decompose a highly complex +though immediate judgment into its constituent elements, none of which when +isolated can have the completeness or the cogency of the original conviction taken as a +whole.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 31, 32—<q>Demonstration is only a makeshift for helping +ignorance to insight.... When we come to an argument in which the whole nature is +addressed, the argument must seem weak or strong, according as the nature is feebly, +or fully, developed. The moral argument for theism cannot seem strong to one without +a conscience. The argument from cognitive interests will be empty when there is +no cognitive interest. Little souls find very little that calls for explanation or that +excites surprise, and they are satisfied with a correspondingly small view of life and +existence. In such a case we cannot hope for universal agreement. We can only +proclaim the faith that is in us, in hope that this proclamation may not be without +some response in other minds and hearts.... We have only probable evidence for the +uniformity of nature or for the affection of friends. We cannot logically prove either. +The deepest convictions are not the certainties of logic, but the certainties of life.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Remark 3. The arguments for the divine existence may be reduced to +four, namely: I. The Cosmological; II. The Teleological; III. The +Anthropological; and IV. The Ontological. We shall examine these in +order, seeking first to determine the precise conclusions to which they +respectively lead, and then to ascertain in what manner the four may be +combined. +</p> + +<pb n='073'/><anchor id='Pg073'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. The Cosmological Argument, or Argument from Change in +Nature.</head> + +<p> +This is not properly an argument from effect to cause; for the proposition +that every effect must have a cause is simply identical, and means only +that every caused event must have a cause. It is rather an argument from +begun existence to a sufficient cause of that beginning, and may be accurately +stated as follows: +</p> + +<p> +Everything begun, whether substance or phenomenon, owes its existence +to some producing cause. The universe, at least so far as its present form +is concerned, is a thing begun, and owes its existence to a cause which is +equal to its production. This cause must be indefinitely great. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is to be noticed that this argument moves wholly in the realm of nature. The +argument from man's constitution and beginning upon the planet is treated under +another head (see Anthropological Argument). That the present form of the universe +is not eternal in the past, but has begun to be, not only personal observation but the +testimony of geology assures us. For statements of the argument, see Kant, Critique +of Pure Reason (Bohn's transl.), 370; Gillespie, Necessary Existence of God, 8:34-44; +Bib. Sac., 1849:613; 1850:613; Porter, Hum. Intellect, 570; Herbert Spencer, First Principles, +93. It has often been claimed, as by Locke, Clarke, and Robert Hall, that this +argument is sufficient to conduct the mind to an Eternal and Infinite First Cause. We +proceed therefore to mention +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>The defects of the Cosmological Argument.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +A. It is impossible to show that the universe, so far as its substance is +concerned, has had a beginning. The law of causality declares, not that +everything has a cause—for then God himself must have a cause—but +rather that everything begun has a cause, or in other words, that every +event or change has a cause. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Hume, Philos. Works, 2:411 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>, urges with reason that we never saw a world made. +Many philosophers in Christian lands, as Martineau, Essays, 1:206, and the prevailing +opinions of ante-Christian times, have held matter to be eternal. Bowne, Metaphysics, +107—<q>For being itself, the reflective reason never asks a cause, unless the being show +signs of dependence. It is change that first gives rise to the demand for cause.</q> Martineau, +Types, 1:291—<q>It is not existence, as such, that demands a cause, but the coming +into existence of what did not exist before. The intellectual law of causality is a law +for phenomena, and not for entity.</q> See also McCosh, Intuitions, 225-241; Calderwood, +Philos. of Infinite, 61. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Murphy, Scient. Bases of Faith, 49, 195, and Habit +and Intelligence, 1:55-67; Knight, Lect. on Metaphysics, lect. ii, p. 19. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Granting that the universe, so far as its phenomena are concerned, +has had a cause, it is impossible to show that any other cause is required +than a cause within itself, such as the pantheist supposes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Flint, Theism, 65—<q>The cosmological argument alone proves only force, and no mere +force is God. Intelligence must go with power to make a Being that can be called +God.</q> Diman, Theistic Argument: <q>The cosmological argument alone cannot decide +whether the force that causes change is permanent self-existent mind, or permanent +self-existent matter.</q> Only intelligence gives the basis for an answer. Only mind in +the universe enables us to infer mind in the maker. But the argument from intelligence +is not the Cosmological, but the Teleological, and to this last belong all proofs of Deity +from order and combination in nature. +</p> + +<p> +Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 201-296—Science has to do with those changes which one +portion of the visible universe causes in another portion. Philosophy and theology +deal with the Infinite Cause which brings into existence and sustains the entire series +of finite causes. Do we ask the cause of the stars? Science says: Fire-mist, or an +infinite regress of causes. Theology says: Granted; but this infinite regress demands +<pb n='074'/><anchor id='Pg074'/> +for its explanation the belief in God. We must believe both in God, and in an endless +series of finite causes. God is the cause of all causes, the soul of all souls: <q>Centre and +soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near!</q> We do not need, as mere +matter of science, to think of any beginning. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. Granting that the universe most have had a cause outside of itself, it +is impossible to show that this cause has not itself been caused, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, consists +of an infinite series of dependent causes. The principle of causality does +not require that everything begun should be traced back to an uncaused +cause; it demands that we should assign a cause, but not that we should +assign a first cause. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +So with the whole series of causes. The materialist is bound to find a cause for this +series, only when the series is shown to have had a beginning. But the very hypothesis +of an infinite series of causes excludes the idea of such a beginning. An infinite chain +has no topmost link (<hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> Robert Hall); an uncaused and eternal succession does not +need a cause (<hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> Clarke and Locke). See Whately, Logic, 270; New Englander, +Jan. 1874:75; Alexander, Moral Science, 221; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:160-164; Calderwood, +Moral Philos., 225; Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 37—criticized by Bowne, +Review of H. Spencer, 36. Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:128, says that the causal principle +is not satisfied till by regress we come to a cause which is not itself an effect—to one +who is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>causa sui</foreign>; Aids to Study of German Theology, 15-17—Even if the universe be +eternal, its contingent and relative nature requires us to postulate an eternal Creator; +Diman, Theistic Argument, 86—<q>While the law of causation does not lead logically up +to the conclusion of a first cause, it compels us to affirm it.</q> We reply that it is not +the law of causation which compels us to affirm it, for this certainly <q>does not lead +logically up to the conclusion.</q> If we infer an uncaused cause, we do it, not by logical +process, but by virtue of the intuitive belief within us. So substantially Secretan, and +Whewell, in Indications of a Creator, and in Hist. of Scientific Ideas, 2:321, 322—<q>The +mind takes refuge, in the assumption of a First Cause, from an employment inconsistent +with its own nature</q>; <q>we necessarily infer a First Cause, although the palætiological +sciences only point toward it, but do not lead us to it.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. Granting that the cause of the universe has not itself been caused, +it is impossible to show that this cause is not finite, like the universe +itself. The causal principle requires a cause no greater than just sufficient +to account for the effect. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We cannot therefore infer an infinite cause, unless the universe is infinite—which +cannot be proved, but can only be assumed—and this is assuming an infinite in order +to prove an infinite. All we know of the universe is finite. An infinite universe implies +infinite number. But no number can be infinite, for to any number, however great, a +unit can be added, which shows that it was not infinite before. Here again we see +that the most approved forms of the Cosmological Argument are obliged to avail +themselves of the intuition of the infinite, to supplement the logical process. <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> +Martineau, Study, 1:416—<q>Though we cannot directly infer the infinitude of God from +a limited creation, indirectly we may exclude every other position by resort to its +unlimited scene of existence (space).</q> But this would equally warrant our belief in the +infinitude of our fellow men. Or, it is the argument of Clarke and Gillespie (see Ontological +Argument below). Schiller, Die Grösse der Welt, seems to hold to a boundless +universe. He represents a tired spirit as seeking the last limit of creation. A second +pilgrim meets him from the spaces beyond with the words: <q>Steh! du segelst umsonst,—vor +dir Unendlichkeit</q>—<q>Hold! thou journeyest in vain,—before thee is only Infinity.</q> +On the law of parsimony, see Sir Wm. Hamilton, Discussions, 628. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>The value of the Cosmological Argument</hi>, then, is simply this,—it +proves the existence of some cause of the universe indefinitely great. +When we go beyond this and ask whether this cause is a cause of being, +or merely a cause of change, to the universe; whether it is a cause apart +from the universe, or one with it; whether it is an eternal cause, or a cause +<pb n='075'/><anchor id='Pg075'/> +dependent upon some other cause; whether it is intelligent or unintelligent, +infinite or finite, one or many,—this argument cannot assure us. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On the whole argument, see Flint, Theism, 93-130; Mozley, Essays, Hist. and Theol., +2:414-444; Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, 148-154; Studien und Kritiken, 1876:9-31. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Order and +Useful Collocation in Nature.</head> + +<p> +This is not properly an argument from design to a designer; for that +design implies a designer is simply an identical proposition. It may be +more correctly stated as follows: Order and useful collocation pervading a +system respectively imply intelligence and purpose as the cause of that order +and collocation. Since order and useful collocation pervade the universe, +there must exist an intelligence adequate to the production of this order, +and a will adequate to direct this collocation to useful ends. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Etymologically, <q>teleological argument</q> = argument to ends or final causes, that is, +<q>causes which, beginning as a thought, work themselves out into a fact as an end or +result</q> (Porter, Hum. Intellect, 592-618);—health, for example, is the final cause of +exercise, while exercise is the efficient cause of health. This definition of the argument +would be broad enough to cover the proof of a designing intelligence drawn from the +constitution of man. This last, however, is treated as a part of the Anthropological +Argument, which follows this, and the Teleological Argument covers only the proof +of a designing intelligence drawn from nature. Hence Kant, Critique of Pure Reason +(Bohn's trans.), 381, calls it the physico-theological argument. On methods of stating +the argument, see Bib. Sac., Oct. 1867:625. See also Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, 155-185; +Mozley, Essays Hist. and Theol., 2:365-413. +</p> + +<p> +Hicks, in his Critique of Design-Arguments, 347-389, makes two arguments instead of +one: (1) the argument from <emph>order</emph> to <emph>intelligence</emph>, to which he gives the name Eutaxiological; +(2) the argument from <emph>adaptation</emph> to <emph>purpose</emph>, to which he would restrict the +name Teleological. He holds that teleology proper cannot prove <emph>intelligence</emph>, because in +speaking of <q>ends</q> at all, it must assume the very intelligence which it seeks to prove; +that it actually does prove simply the <emph>intentional exercise</emph> of an intelligence whose existence +has been previously established. <q>Circumstances, forces or agencies converging +to a definite rational result imply volition—imply that this result is intended—is an end. +This is the major premise of this new teleology.</q> He objects to the term <q>final cause.</q> +The end is not a cause at all—it is a motive. The characteristic element of cause is +power to produce an effect. Ends have no such power. The will may choose them or +set them aside. As already assuming intelligence, ends cannot prove intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +With this in the main we agree, and count it a valuable help to the statement and +understanding of the argument. In the very observation of <emph>order</emph>, however, as well as +in arguing from it, we are obliged to assume the same all-arranging intelligence. We +see no objection therefore to making Eutaxiology the first part of the Teleological +Argument, as we do above. See review of Hicks, in Meth. Quar. Rev., July, 1883:569-576. +We proceed however to certain +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Further explanations.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +A. The major premise expresses a primitive conviction. It is not +invalidated by the objections: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) that order and useful collocation may +exist without being purposed—for we are compelled by our very mental +constitution to deny this in all cases where the order and collocation +pervade a system: (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) that order and useful collocation may result from the +mere operation of physical forces and laws—for these very forces and laws +imply, instead of excluding, an originating and superintending intelligence +and will. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Janet, in his work on Final Causes, 8, denies that finality is a primitive conviction, like +causality, and calls it the result of an induction. He therefore proceeds from (1) +<pb n='076'/><anchor id='Pg076'/> +marks of order and useful collocation to (2) finality in nature, and then to (3) an intelligent +cause of this finality or <q>pre-conformity to future event.</q> So Diman, Theistic +Argument, 105, claims simply that, as change requires cause, so orderly change requires +intelligent cause. We have shown, however, that induction and argument of every +kind presupposes intuitive belief in final cause. Nature does not give us final cause; +but no more does she give us efficient cause. Mind gives us both, and gives them as +clearly upon one experience as after a thousand. Ladd: <q>Things have mind in them: +else they could not be minded by us.</q> The Duke of Argyll told Darwin that it seemed +to him wholly impossible to ascribe the adjustments of nature to any other agency than +that of mind. <q>Well,</q> said Darwin, <q>that impression has often come upon me with +overpowering force. But then, at other times, it all seems—;</q> and then he passed +his hands over his eyes, as if to indicate the passing of a vision out of sight. Darwinism +is not a refutation of ends in nature, but only of a particular theory with regard to the +way in which ends are realized in the organic world. Darwin would begin with an +infinitesimal germ, and make all the subsequent development unteleological; see +Schurman, Belief in God, 193. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Illustration of unpurposed order in the single throwing of <q>double sixes,</q>—constant +throwing of double sixes indicates design. So arrangement of detritus at +mouth of river, and warming pans sent to the West Indies,—useful but not purposed. +Momerie, Christianity and Evolution, 72—<q>It is only within narrow limits that seemingly +purposeful arrangements are produced by chance. And therefore, as the signs +of purpose increase, the presumption in favor of their accidental origin diminishes.</q> +Elder, Ideas from Nature, 81, 82—<q>The uniformity of a boy's marbles shows them to +be products of design. A single one might be accidental, but a dozen cannot be. So +atomic uniformity indicates manufacture.</q> Illustrations of purposed order, in Beattie's +garden, Tillotson's blind men, Kepler's salad. Dr. Carpenter: <q>The atheist is like +a man examining the machinery of a great mill, who, finding that the whole is moved +by a shaft proceeding from a brick wall, infers that the shaft is a sufficient explanation +of what he sees, and that there is no moving power behind it.</q> Lord Kelvin: <q>The +atheistic idea is nonsensical.</q> J. G. Paton, Life, 2:191—The sinking of a well on the +island of Aniwa convinces the cannibal chief Namakei that Jehovah God exists, the +invisible One. See Chauncey Wright, in N. Y. Nation, Jan. 15, 1874; Murphy, Scientific +Bases of Faith, 208. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 231-247—<q>Law is <emph>method</emph>, not <emph>cause</emph>. A +man cannot offer the very fact to be explained, as its sufficient explanation.</q> Martineau, +Essays, 1:144—<q>Patterned damask, made not by the weaver, but by the loom?</q> +Dr. Stevenson: <q>House requires no architect, because it is built by stone-masons and +carpenters?</q> Joseph Cook: <q>Natural law without God behind it is no more than a +glove without a hand in it, and all that is done by the gloved hand of God in nature is +done by the hand and not by the glove. Evolution is a process, not a power; a method +of operation, not an operator. A book is not written <emph>by</emph> the laws of spelling and grammar, +but <emph>according</emph> to those laws. So the book of the universe is not written by the +laws of heat, electricity, gravitation, evolution, but according to those laws.</q> G. F. +Wright, Ant. and Orig. of Hum. Race, lecture IX—<q>It is impossible for evolution to +furnish evidence which shall drive design out of nature. It can only drive it back to +an earlier point of entrance, thereby increasing our admiration for the power of the +Creator to accomplish ulterior designs by unlikely means.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Evolution is only the method of God. It has to do with the <emph>how</emph>, not with the <emph>why</emph>, +of phenomena, and therefore is not inconsistent with design, but rather is a new and +higher illustration of design. Henry Ward Beecher: <q>Design by wholesale is greater +than design by retail.</q> Frances Power Cobbe: <q>It is a singular fact that, whenever +we find out <emph>how</emph> a thing is done, our first conclusion seems to be that <emph>God</emph> did not +do it.</q> Why should we say: <q>The more law, the less God?</q> The theist refers the +phenomena to a cause that knows itself and what it is doing; the atheist refers them +to a power which knows nothing of itself and what it is doing (Bowne). George John +Romanes said that, if God be immanent, then all natural causation must appear to be +mechanical, and it is no argument against the divine origin of a thing to prove it due +to natural causation: <q>Causes in nature do not obviate the necessity of a cause in +nature.</q> Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 47—Evolution shows that the direction of +affairs is under control of something like our own intelligence: <q>Evolution spells +Purpose.</q> Clarke, Christ. Theology, 105—<q>The modern doctrine of evolution has +been awake to the existence of innumerable ends <emph>within</emph> the universe, but not to the +one great end <hi rend='italic'>for</hi> the universe itself.</q> Huxley, Critiques and Addresses, 274, 275, 307—<q>The +<pb n='077'/><anchor id='Pg077'/> +teleological and mechanical views of the universe are not mutually exclusive.</q> +Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics: <q>Intelligence stands first in the order of existence. +Efficient causes are preceded by final causes.</q> See also Thornton, Old Fashioned +Ethics, 199-265; Archbp. Temple, Bampton Lect., 1884:99-123; Owen, Anat. of Vertebrates, +3:796; Peirce, Ideality in the Physical Sciences, 1-35; Newman Smyth, Through +Science to Faith, 96; Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Rev., 135. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The minor premise expresses a working-principle of all science, +namely, that all things have their uses, that order pervades the universe, and +that the methods of nature are rational methods. Evidences of this appear +in the correlation of the chemical elements to each other; in the fitness of +the inanimate world to be the basis and support of life; in the typical forms +and unity of plan apparent in the organic creation; in the existence and +coöperation of natural laws; in cosmical order and compensations. +</p> + +<p> +This minor premise is not invalidated by the objections: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That we +frequently misunderstand the end actually subserved by natural events and +objects; for the principle is, not that we necessarily know the actual end, +but that we necessarily believe that there is some end, in every case of +systematic order and collocation. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That the order of the universe is +manifestly imperfect; for this, if granted, would argue, not absence of +contrivance, but some special reason for imperfection, either in the limitations +of the contriving intelligence itself, or in the nature of the end sought +(as, for example, correspondence with the moral state and probation of +sinners). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The evidences of order and useful collocation are found both in the indefinitely small +and the indefinitely great. The molecules are manufactured articles; and the compensations +of the solar system which provide that a secular flattening of the earth's +orbit shall be made up for by a secular rounding of that same orbit, alike show an +intelligence far transcending our own; see Cooke, Religion and Chemistry, and Credentials +of Science, 23—<q>Beauty is the harmony of relations which perfect fitness produces; +law is the prevailing principle which underlies that harmony. Hence both +beauty and law imply design. From energy, fitness, beauty, order, sacrifice, we argue +might, skill, perfection, law, and love in a Supreme Intelligence. Christianity implies +design, and is the completion of the design argument.</q> Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, +1:168—<q>A good definition of beauty is immanent purposiveness, the teleological ideal +background of reality, the shining of the Idea through phenomena.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Philos. Theism, 85—<q>Design is never causal. It is only ideal, and it demands +an efficient cause for its realization. If ice is not to sink, and to freeze out life, there +must be some molecular structure which shall make its bulk greater than that of an +equal weight of water.</q> Jackson, Theodore Parker, 355—<q>Rudimentary organs are +like the silent letters in many words,—both are witnesses to a past history; and there +is intelligence in their preservation.</q> Diman, Theistic Argument: <q>Not only do we +observe in the world the change which is the basis of the Cosmological Argument, but +we perceive that this change proceeds according to a fixed and invariable rule. In inorganic +nature, general order, or <emph>regularity</emph>; in organic nature, special order or <emph>adaptation</emph>.</q> +Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 113-115, 224-230: <q>Inductive science proceeds upon +the postulate that the reasonable and the natural are one.</q> This furnished the guiding +clue to Harvey and Cuvier; see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, 2:489-491. Kant: +<q>The anatomist must assume that nothing in man is in vain.</q> Aristotle: <q>Nature +makes nothing in vain.</q> On molecules as manufactured articles, see Maxfield, in Nature, +Sept. 25, 1873. See also Tulloch, Theism, 116, 120; LeConte, Religion and Science, +lect. 2 and 3; McCosh, Typical Forms, 81, 420; Agassiz, Essay on Classification, 9, 10; +Bib. Sac., 1849:626 and 1850:613; Hopkins, in Princeton Review, 1882:181. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Design, in fact that rivers always run by large towns? that springs are always +found at gambling places? Plants made for man, and man for worms? Voltaire: +<q>Noses are made for spectacles—let us wear them!</q> Pope: <q>While man exclaims +<q>See all things for my use,</q> <q>See man for mine,</q> replies the pampered goose.</q> Cherries +<pb n='078'/><anchor id='Pg078'/> +do not ripen in the cold of winter when they do not taste as well, and grapes do +not ripen in the heat of summer when the new wine would turn to vinegar? Nature +divides melons into sections for convenience in family eating? Cork-tree made for +bottle-stoppers? The child who was asked the cause of salt in the ocean, attributed +it to codfish, thus dimly confounding final cause with efficient cause. Teacher: +<q>What are marsupials?</q> Pupil: <q>Animals that have pouches in their stomachs.</q> +Teacher: <q>And what do they have pouches for?</q> Pupil: <q>To crawl into and conceal +themselves in, when they are pursued.</q> Why are the days longer in summer than +in winter? Because it is the property of all natural objects to elongate under the +influence of heat. A Jena professor held that doctors do not exist because of disease, +but that diseases exist precisely in order that there may be doctors. Kepler was an +astronomical Don Quixote. He discussed the claims of eleven different damsels to +become his second wife, and he likened the planets to huge animals rushing through +the sky. Many of the objections to design arise from confounding a part of the +creation with the whole, or a structure in the process of development with a structure +completed. For illustrations of mistaken ends, see Janet, Final Causes. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Alphonso of Castile took offense at the Ptolemaic System, and intimated that, if +he had been consulted at the creation, he could have suggested valuable improvements. +Lange, in his History of Materialism, illustrates some of the methods of +nature by millions of gun barrels shot in all directions to kill a single hare; by ten thousand +keys bought at haphazard to get into a shut room; by building a city in order to +obtain a house. Is not the ice a little overdone about the poles? See John Stuart +Mill's indictment of nature, in his posthumous Essays on Religion, 29—<q>Nature +impales men, breaks men as if on a wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, +crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, +freezes them with cold, poisons them with the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, +and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of +a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed.</q> So argue Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. +</p> + +<p> +The doctrine of evolution answers many of these objections, by showing that order +and useful collocation in the system as a whole is necessarily and cheaply purchased +by imperfection and suffering in the initial stages of development. The question is: +Does the system as a whole imply design? My opinion is of no value as to the usefulness +of an intricate machine the purpose of which I do not know. If I stand at the +beginning of a road and do not know whither it leads, it is presumptuous in me to +point out a more direct way to its destination. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 20-22—<q>In +order to counterbalance the impressions which apparent disorder and immorality in +nature make upon us, we have to assume that the universe at its root is not only +rational, but good. This is faith, but it is an act on which our whole moral life +depends.</q> Metaphysics, 165—<q>The same argument which would deny mind in nature +denies mind in man.</q> Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Rev., 264—<q>Fifty years ago, when +the crane stood on top of the tower of unfinished Cologne Cathedral, was there no evidence +of design in the whole structure?</q> Yet we concede that, so long as we cannot +with John Stuart Mill explain the imperfections of the universe by any limitations in +the Intelligence which contrived it, we are shut up to regarding them as intended to +correspond with the moral state and probation of sinners which God foresaw and provided +for at the creation. Evil things in the universe are symbols of sin, and helps to +its overthrow. See Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 264, 265; McCosh, Christ. and Positivism, +82 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Martineau, Essays, 1:50, and Study, 1:351-398; Porter, Hum. Intellect, +599; Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 366-371; Princeton Rev., 1878:272-303; Shaw, on +Positivism. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Defects of the Teleological Argument.</hi> These attach not to the +premises but to the conclusion sought to be drawn therefrom. +</p> + +<p> +A. The argument cannot prove a personal God. The order and useful +collocations of the universe may be only the changing phenomena of an +impersonal intelligence and will, such as pantheism supposes. The finality +may be only immanent finality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There is such a thing as immanent and unconscious finality. National spirit, without +set purpose, constructs language. The bee works unconsciously to ends. Strato of +Lampsacus regarded the world as a vast animal. Aristotle, Phys., 2:8—<q>Plant the +ship-builder's skill within the timber itself, and you have the mode in which nature +<pb n='079'/><anchor id='Pg079'/> +produces.</q> Here we see a dim anticipation of the modern doctrine of development +from within instead of creation from without. Neander: <q>The divine work goes on +from within outward.</q> John Fiske: <q>The argument from the watch has been superseded +by the argument from the flower.</q> Iverach, Theism, 91—<q>The effect of evolution +has been simply to transfer the cause from a mere external influence working from +without to an immanent rational principle.</q> Martineau, Study, 1:349, 350—<q>Theism +is in no way committed to the doctrine of a God external to the world ... nor does +intelligence require, in order to gain an object, to give it externality.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Newman Smyth, Place of Death, 62-80—<q>The universe exists in some all-pervasive +Intelligence. Suppose we could see a small heap of brick, scraps of metal, and pieces +of mortar, gradually shaping themselves into the walls and interior structure of a +building, adding needed material as the work advanced, and at last presenting in its +completion a factory furnished with varied and finely wrought machinery. Or, a +locomotive carrying a process of self-repair to compensate for wear, growing and +increasing in size, detaching from itself at intervals pieces of brass or iron endowed with +the power of growing up step by step into other locomotives capable of running themselves +and of reproducing new locomotives in their turn.</q> So nature in its separate +parts may seem mechanical, but as a whole it is rational. Weismann does not <q>disown +a directive power,</q>—only this power is <q>behind the mechanism as its final cause +... it must be teleological.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Impressive as are these evidences of intelligence in the universe as a whole, and +increased in number as they are by the new light of evolution, we must still hold that +nature alone cannot prove that this intelligence is personal. Hopkins, Miscellanies, +18-36—<q>So long as there is such a thing as impersonal and adapting intelligence in the +brute creation, we cannot necessarily infer from unchanging laws a free and personal +God.</q> See Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 576-578. Kant shows that the +argument does not prove intelligence apart from the world (Critique, 370). We must +bring mind to the world, if we would find mind in it. Leave out man, and nature cannot +be properly interpreted: the intelligence and will in nature may still be unconscious. +But, taking in man, we are bound to get our idea of the intelligence and will in nature +from the highest type of intelligence and will we know, and that is man's. <q>Nullus in +microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus.</q> <q>We receive but what we give, +And in our life alone does Nature live.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Teleological Argument therefore needs to be supplemented by the Anthropological +Argument, or the argument from the mental and moral constitution of man. +By itself, it does not prove a Creator. See Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 26; Ritter, Hist. +Anc. Philos., bk. 9, chap. 6; Foundations of our Faith, 38; Murphy, Scientific Bases, +215; Habit and Intelligence, 2:6, and chap. 27. On immanent finality, see Janet, Final +Causes, 345-415; Diman, Theistic Argument, 201-203. Since righteousness belongs only +to personality, this argument cannot prove righteousness in God. Flint, Theism, 66—<q>Power +and Intelligence alone do not constitute God, though they be infinite. A being +may have these, and, if lacking righteousness, may be a devil.</q> Here again we see the +need of the Anthropological Argument to supplement this. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Even if this argument could prove personality in the intelligence +and will that originated the order of the universe, it could not prove either +the unity, the eternity, or the infinity of God; not the unity—for the useful +collocations of the universe might be the result of oneness of counsel, +instead of oneness of essence, in the contriving intelligence; not the eternity—for +a created demiurge might conceivably have designed the universe; +not the infinity—since all marks of order and collocation within our observation +are simply finite. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Diman asserts (Theistic Argument, 114) that all the phenomena of the universe must +be due to the same source—since all alike are subject to the same method of sequence, +<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, gravitation—and that the evidence points us irresistibly to some <emph>one</emph> explanatory +cause. We can regard this assertion only as the utterance of a primitive belief in a first +cause, not as the conclusion of logical demonstration, for we know only an infinitesimal +part of the universe. From the point of view of the intuition of an Absolute Reason, +however, we can cordially assent to the words of F. L. Patton: <q>When we consider +Matthew Arnold's <q>stream of tendency,</q> Spencer's <q>unknowable,</q> Schopenhauer's +<pb n='080'/><anchor id='Pg080'/> +<q>world as will,</q> and Hartmann's elaborate defence of finality as the product of unconscious +intelligence, we may well ask if the theists, with their belief in one personal +God, are not in possession of the only hypothesis that can save the language of these +writers from the charge of meaningless and idiotic raving</q> (Journ. Christ. Philos., +April, 1883:283-307). +</p> + +<p> +The ancient world, which had only the light of nature, believed in many gods. +William James, Will to Believe, 44—<q>If there be a divine Spirit of the universe, nature, +such as we know her, cannot possibly be its <emph>ultimate word</emph> to man. Either there is +no spirit revealed in nature, or else it is inadequately revealed there; and (as all +the higher religions have assumed) what we call visible nature, or <emph>this</emph> world, must be +but a veil and surface-show whose full meaning resides in a supplementary unseen, or +<emph>other</emph> world.</q> Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 234—<q>But is not intelligence +itself the mystery of mysteries?... No doubt, intellect is a great mystery.... +But there is a choice in mysteries. Some mysteries leave other things clear, and some +leave things as dark and impenetrable as ever. The former is the case with the mystery +of intelligence. It makes possible the comprehension of everything but itself.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>The value of the Teleological Argument</hi> is simply this,—it proves +from certain useful collocations and instances of order which have clearly +had a beginning, or in other words, from the present harmony of the universe, +that there exists an intelligence and will adequate to its contrivance. +But whether this intelligence and will is personal or impersonal, creator or +only fashioner, one or many, finite or infinite, eternal or owing its being to +another, necessary or free, this argument cannot assure us. +</p> + +<p> +In it, however, we take a step forward. The causative power which we +have proved by the Cosmological Argument has now become an intelligent +and voluntary power. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Theism, 168-170—<q>In the present state of our +knowledge, the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability in favor of +causation by intelligence.</q> Ladd holds that, whenever one being acts upon its like, +each being undergoes changes of state that belong to its own nature under the circumstances. +Action of one body on another never consists in transferring the state of +one being to another. Therefore there is no more difficulty in beings that are unlike +acting on one another than in beings that are like. We do not transfer ideas to other +minds,—we only rouse them to develop their own ideas. So force also is positively +not transferable. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 49, begins with <q>the conception of things +interacting according to law and forming an intelligible system. Such a system +cannot be construed by thought without the assumption of a unitary being which is +the fundamental reality of the system. 53—No passage of influences or forces will +avail to bridge the gulf, so long as the things are regarded as independent. 56—The +system itself cannot explain this interaction, for the system is only the members of it. +There must be some being in them which is their reality, and of which they are in some +sense phases or manifestations. In other words, there must be a basal monism.</q> +All this is substantially the view of Lotze, of whose philosophy see criticism in Stählin's +Kant, Lotze, and Ritschl, 116-156, and especially 123. Falckenberg, Gesch. der neueren +Philosophie, 454, shows as to Lotze's view that his assumption of monistic unity and +continuity does not explain how change of condition in one thing should, as equalization +or compensation, follow change of condition in another thing. Lotze explains +this <emph>actuality</emph> by the ethical conception of an all-embracing Person. On the whole argument, +see Bib. Sac., 1849:634; Murphy, Sci. Bases, 216; Flint, Theism, 131-210; Pfleiderer, +Die Religion, 1:164-174; W. R. Benedict, on Theism and Evolution, in Andover Rev., +1886:307-350, 607-622. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. The Anthropological Argument, or Argument from Man's +Mental and Moral Nature.</head> + +<p> +This is an argument from the mental and moral condition of man to +the existence of an Author, Lawgiver, and End. It is sometimes called +the Moral Argument. +</p> + +<pb n='081'/><anchor id='Pg081'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The common title <q>Moral Argument</q> is much too narrow, for it seems to take +account only of conscience in man, whereas the argument which this title so imperfectly +designates really proceeds from man's intellectual and emotional, as well as from +his moral, nature. In choosing the designation we have adopted, we desire, moreover, +to rescue from the mere physicist the term <q>Anthropology</q>—a term to which he has +attached altogether too limited a signification, and which, in his use of it, implies +that man is a mere animal,—to him Anthropology is simply the study of <foreign lang='fr' rend='italic'>la bête +humaine</foreign>. Anthropology means, not simply the science of man's physical nature, +origin, and relations, but also the science which treats of his higher spiritual being. +Hence, in Theology, the term Anthropology designates that division of the subject +which treats of man's spiritual nature and endowments, his original state and his +subsequent apostasy. As an argument, therefore, from man's mental and moral +nature, we can with perfect propriety call the present argument the Anthropological +Argument. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The argument is a complex one, and may be divided into three parts. +</p> + +<p> +1. Man's intellectual and moral nature must have had for its author an +intellectual and moral Being. The elements of the proof are as follows:—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) +Man, as an intellectual and moral being, has had a beginning upon +the planet. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Material and unconscious forces do not afford a sufficient +cause for man's reason, conscience, and free will. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Man, as an effect, +can be referred only to a cause possessing self-consciousness and a moral +nature, in other words, personality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This argument is is part an application to man of the principles of both the Cosmological +and the Teleological Arguments. Flint, Theism, 74—<q>Although causality +does not involve design, nor design goodness, yet design involves causality, and goodness +both causality and design.</q> Jacobi: <q>Nature conceals God; man reveals him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Man is an effect. The history of the geologic ages proves that man has not always +existed, and even if the lower creatures were his progenitors, his intellect and freedom +are not eternal <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a parte ante</foreign>. We consider man, not as a physical, but as a spiritual, +being. Thompson, Christian Theism, 75—<q>Every true cause must be sufficient to +account for the effect.</q> Locke, Essay, book 4, chap. 10—<q>Cogitable existence cannot +be produced out of incogitable.</q> Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:258 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +Even if man had always existed, however, we should not need to abandon the +argument. We might start, not from beginning of existence, but from beginning of +phenomena. I might see God in the world, just as I see thought, feeling, will, in +my fellow men. Fullerton, Plain Argument for God: I do not infer you, as cause of +the <emph>existence</emph> of your body: I recognize you as present and <emph>working</emph> through your body. +Its changes of gesture and speech reveal a personality behind them. So I do not +need to argue back to a Being who once <emph>caused</emph> nature and history; I recognize a +<emph>present</emph> Being, exercising wisdom and power, by signs such as reveal personality in +man. Nature is itself the Watchmaker manifesting himself in the very process of +making the watch. This is the meaning of the noble Epilogue to Robert Browning's +Dramatis Personæ, 252—<q>That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, Or decomposes +but to recompose, Become my universe that feels and knows.</q> <q>That Face,</q> said +Mr. Browning to Mrs. Orr, <q>That Face is the face of Christ; that is how I feel him.</q> +Nature is an expression of the mind and will of Christ, as my face is an expression +of my mind and will. But in both cases, behind and above the face is a personality, of +which the face is but the partial and temporary expression. +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Philos. Theism, 104, 107—<q>My fellow beings act <emph>as if</emph> they had thought, +feeling, and will. So nature looks <emph>as if</emph> thought, feeling, and will were behind it. If +we deny mind in nature, we must deny mind in man. If there be no controlling +mind in nature, moreover, there can be none in man, for if the basal power is blind +and necessary, then all that depends upon it is necessitated also.</q> LeConte, in Royce's +Conception of God, 44—<q>There is only one place in the world where we can get behind +physical phenomena, behind the veil of matter, namely, in our own brain, and we +find there a self, a person. Is it not reasonable that, if we could get behind the veil +of nature, we should find the same, that is, a Person? But if so, we must conclude, +an infinite Person, and therefore the only complete Personality that exists. Perfect +<pb n='082'/><anchor id='Pg082'/> +personality is not only self-conscious, but self-existent. <emph>They</emph> are only imperfect +images, and, as it were, separated fragments, of the infinite Personality of God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Personality = self-consciousness + self-determination in view of moral ends. The +brute has intelligence and will, but has neither self-consciousness, conscience, nor +free-will. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:76 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> Diman, Theistic Argument, +91, 251—<q>Suppose <q>the intuitions of the moral faculty are the slowly organized results +of experience received from the race</q>; still, having found that the universe affords +evidence of a supremely intelligent cause, we may believe that man's moral nature +affords the highest illustration of its mode of working</q>; 358—<q>Shall we explain the +lower forms of will by the higher, or the higher by the lower?</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Man's moral nature proves the existence of a holy Lawgiver and +Judge. The elements of the proof are:—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Conscience recognizes the +existence of a moral law which has supreme authority. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Known violations +of this moral law are followed by feelings of ill-desert and fears of +judgment. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) This moral law, since it is not self-imposed, and these +threats of judgment, since they are not self-executing, respectively argue +the existence of a holy will that has imposed the law, and of a punitive +power that will execute the threats of the moral nature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Bishop Butler's Sermons on Human Nature, in Works, Bohn's ed., 385-414. Butler's +great discovery was that of the supremacy of conscience in the moral constitution +of man: <q>Had it strength as it has right, had it power as it has manifest authority, it +would absolutely govern the world.</q> Conscience = the moral judiciary of the soul—not +law, nor sheriff, but judge; see under Anthropology. Diman, Theistic Argument, +251—<q>Conscience does not lay down a law; it warns us of the existence of a law; and +not only of a law, but of a purpose—not our own, but the purpose of another, which +it is our mission to realize.</q> See Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 218 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> It proves +personality in the Lawgiver, because its utterances are not abstract, like those of +reason, but are in the nature of command; they are not in the indicative, but in the +imperative, mood; it says, <q>thou shalt</q> and <q>thou shalt not.</q> This argues <emph>will</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Hutton, Essays, 1:11—<q>Conscience is an ideal Moses, and thunders from an invisible +Sinai</q>; <q>the Atheist regards conscience not as a skylight, opened to let in upon human +nature an infinite dawn from above, but as a polished arch or dome, completing and +reflecting the whole edifice beneath.</q> But conscience cannot be the mere reflection +and expression of nature, for it represses and condemns nature. Tulloch, Theism: +<q>Conscience, like the magnetic needle, indicates the existence of an unknown Power +which from afar controls its vibrations and at whose presence it trembles.</q> Nero +spends nights of terror in wandering through the halls of his Golden House. Kant +holds that faith in duty requires faith in a God who will defend and reward duty—see +Critique of Pure Reason, 359-387. See also Porter, Human Intellect, 524. +</p> + +<p> +Kant, in his Metaphysic of Ethics, represents the action of conscience as like <q>conducting +a case before a court,</q> and he adds: <q>Now that he who is accused before his +conscience should be figured to be just the same person as his judge, is an absurd representation +of a tribunal; since, in such an event, the accuser would always lose his +suit. Conscience must therefore represent to itself always some other than itself as +Judge, unless it is to arrive at a contradiction with itself.</q> See also his Critique of the +Practical Reason, Werke, 8:214—<q>Duty, thou sublime and mighty name, that hast in +thee nothing to attract or win, but challengest submission; and yet dost threaten +nothing to sway the will by that which may arouse natural terror or aversion, but +merely holdest forth a Law; a Law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and +even while we disobey, against our will compels our reverence, a Law in presence of +which all inclinations grow dumb, even while they secretly rebel; what origin is there +worthy of thee? Where can we find the root of thy noble descent, which proudly +rejects all kinship with the inclinations?</q> Archbishop Temple answers, in his Bampton +Lectures, 58, 59, <q>This eternal Law is the Eternal himself, the almighty God.</q> +Robert Browning: <q>The sense within me that I owe a debt Assures me—Somewhere +must be Somebody, Ready to take his due. All comes to this: Where due is, there +acceptance follows: find Him who accepts the due.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Salter, Ethical Religion, quoted in Pfleiderer's article on Religionless Morality, Am. +Jour. Theol., 3:237—<q>The earth and the stars do not create the law of gravitation +<pb n='083'/><anchor id='Pg083'/> +which they obey; no more does man, or the united hosts of rational beings in the universe, +create the law of duty.</q> The will expressed in the moral imperative is <emph>superior</emph> +to ours, for otherwise it would issue no commands. Yet it is <emph>one</emph> with ours as the life +of an organism is one with the life of its members. Theonomy is not heteronomy +but the highest autonomy, the guarantee of our personal freedom against all servitude +of man. Seneca: <q>Deo parere libertas est.</q> Knight, Essays in Philosophy, 272—<q>In +conscience we see an <q>alter ego</q>, in us yet not of us, another Personality behind our +own.</q> Martineau, Types, 2:105—<q>Over a person only a person can have authority.... +A solitary being, with no other sentient nature in the universe, would feel no +duty</q>; Study, 1:26—<q>As Perception gives us Will in the shape of <emph>Causality</emph> over +against us in the Non-Ego, so Conscience gives us Will in the shape of <emph>Authority</emph> over +against us in the Non-Ego.... 2:7—We cannot deduce the phenomena of character +from an agent who has none.</q> Hutton, Essays, 1:41, 42—<q>When we disobey conscience, +the Power which has therein ceased to <emph>move</emph> us has retired only to <emph>observe</emph>—to +keep <emph>watch</emph> over us as we mould ourselves.</q> Cardinal Newman, Apologia, 377—<q>Were +it not for the voice speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an +atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist, when I looked into the world.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. Man's emotional and voluntary nature proves the existence of a +Being who can furnish in himself a satisfying object of human affection +and an end which will call forth man's highest activities and ensure his +highest progress. +</p> + +<p> +Only a Being of power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness, and all these +indefinitely greater than any that we know upon the earth, can meet this +demand of the human soul. Such a Being must exist. Otherwise man's +greatest need would be unsupplied, and belief in a lie be more productive +of virtue than belief in the truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Feuerbach calls God <q>the Brocken-shadow of man himself</q>; <q>consciousness of God += self-consciousness</q>; <q>religion is a dream of the human soul</q>; <q>all theology is +anthropology</q>; <q>man made God in his own image.</q> But conscience shows that man +does not recognize in God simply his like, but also his opposite. Not as Galton: <q>Piety += conscience + instability.</q> The finest minds are of the leaning type; see Murphy, +Scientific Bases, 370; Augustine, Confessions, 1:1—<q>Thou hast made us for thyself, +and our heart is restless till it finds rest in thee.</q> On John Stuart Mill—<q>a mind that +could not find God, and a heart that could not do without him</q>—see his Autobiography, +and Browne, in Strivings for the Faith (Christ. Ev. Socy.), 259-287. Comte, in his +later days, constructed an object of worship in Universal Humanity, and invented a +ritual which Huxley calls <q>Catholicism <emph>minus</emph> Christianity.</q> See also Tyndall, Belfast +Address: <q>Did I not believe, said a great man to me once, that an Intelligence exists +at the heart of things, my life on earth would be intolerable.</q> Martineau, Types of +Ethical Theory, 1:505,506. +</p> + +<p> +The last line of Schiller's Pilgrim reads: <q>Und das Dort ist niemals hier.</q> The +finite never satisfies. Tennyson, Two Voices: <q>'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, +Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.</q> Seth, +Ethical Principles, 419—<q>A moral universe, an absolute moral Being, is the indispensable +environment of the ethical life, without which it cannot attain to its perfect +growth.... There is a moral <emph>God</emph>, or this is no <emph>universe</emph>.</q> James, Will to Believe, 116—<q>A +God is the most adequate possible object for minds framed like our own to conceive +as lying at the root of the universe. Anything short of God is not a rational +object, anything more than God is not possible, if man needs an object of knowledge, +feeling, and will.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, 41—<q>To speak of the Religion of the Unknowable, +the Religion of Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity, where the personality of the +First Cause is not recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to speak of the love of a +triangle or the rationality of the equator.</q> It was said of Comte's system that, <q>the +wine of the real presence being poured out, we are asked to adore the empty cup.</q> +<q>We want an object of devotion, and Comte presents us with a looking-glass</q> +(Martineau). Huxley said he would as soon adore a wilderness of apes as the Positivist's +rationalized conception of humanity. It is only the ideal in humanity, the divine +<pb n='084'/><anchor id='Pg084'/> +element in humanity that can be worshiped. And when we once conceive of this, we +cannot be satisfied until we find it somewhere realized, as in Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<p> +Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 265-272—Huxley believes that Evolution is <q>a materialized +logical process</q>; that nothing endures save the flow of energy and <q>the rational +order which pervades it.</q> In the earlier part of this process, <emph>nature</emph>, there is no morality +or benevolence. But the process ends by producing <emph>man</emph>, who can make progress +only by waging moral war against the natural forces which impel him. He must be +benevolent and just. Shall we not say, in spite of Mr. Huxley, that this shows what +the nature of the system is, and that there must be a benevolent and just Being who +ordained it? Martineau, Seat of Authority, 63-68—<q>Though the authority of the +higher incentive is self-known, it cannot be self-created; for while it is in me, it is +above me.... This authority to which conscience introduces me, though emerging +in consciousness, is yet <emph>objective</emph> to us all, and is necessarily referred to the nature of +things, irrespective of the accidents of our mental constitution. It is not dependent +on us, but independent. All minds born into the universe are ushered into the presence +of a real righteousness, as surely as into a scene of actual space. Perception +reveals <emph>another</emph> than ourselves; conscience reveals <emph>a higher</emph> than ourselves.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We must freely grant, however, that this argument from man's aspirations has +weight only upon the supposition that a wise, truthful, holy, and benevolent God +exists, who has so constituted our minds that their thinking and their affections correspond +to truth and to himself. An evil being might have so constituted us that all +logic would lead us into error. The argument is therefore the development and +expression of our intuitive idea of God. Luthardt, Fundamental Truths: <q>Nature is +like a written document containing only consonants. It is we who must furnish the +vowels that shall decipher it. Unless we bring with us the idea of God, we shall find +nature but dumb.</q> See also Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:174. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +A. <hi rend='italic'>The defects of the Anthropological Argument are</hi>: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It cannot +prove a creator of the material universe. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It cannot prove the infinity +of God, since man from whom we argue is finite. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It cannot prove the +mercy of God. But, +</p> + +<p> +B. <hi rend='italic'>The value of the Argument</hi> is, that it assures us of the existence of +a personal Being, who rules us in righteousness, and who is the proper +object of supreme affection and service. But whether this Being is the +original creator of all things, or merely the author of our own existence, +whether he is infinite or finite, whether he is a Being of simple righteousness +or also of mercy, this argument cannot assure us. +</p> + +<p> +Among the arguments for the existence of God, however, we assign to +this the chief place, since it adds to the ideas of causative power (which +we derived from the Cosmological Argument) and of contriving intelligence +(which we derived from the Teleological Argument), the far wider +ideas of personality and righteous lordship. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Sir Wm. Hamilton, Works of Reid, 2:974, note U; Lect. on Metaph., 1:33—<q>The +only valid arguments for the existence of God and for the immortality of the soul rest +upon the ground of man's moral nature</q>; <q>theology is wholly dependent upon psychology, +for with the proof of the moral nature of man stands or falls the proof of the +existence of a Deity.</q> But Diman, Theistic Argument, 244, very properly objects to +making this argument from the nature of man the sole proof of Deity: <q>It should be +rather used to show the attributes of the Being whose existence has been already +proved from other sources</q>; <q>hence the Anthropological Argument is as dependent +upon the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments as they are upon it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Yet the Anthropological Argument is needed to supplement the conclusions of the +two others. Those who, like Herbert Spencer, recognize an infinite and absolute +Being, Power and Cause, may yet fail to recognize this being as spiritual and personal, +simply because they do not recognize themselves as spiritual and personal +beings, that is, do not recognize reason, conscience and free-will in man. Agnosticism +in philosophy involves agnosticism in religion. R. K. Eccles: <q>All the most advanced +<pb n='085'/><anchor id='Pg085'/> +languages capitalize the word <q>God,</q> and the word <q>I.</q></q> See Flint, Theism, 68; Mill, +Criticism of Hamilton, 2:266; Dove, Logic of Christian Faith, 211-236, 261-299; Martineau, +Types, Introd., 3; Cooke, Religion and Chemistry: <q>God is love; but nature +could not prove it, and the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world in order +to attest it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Everything in philosophy depends on where we begin, whether with nature or with +self, whether with the necessary or with the free. In one sense, therefore, we should +in practice begin with the Anthropological Argument, and then use the Cosmological +and Teleological Arguments as warranting the application to nature of the conclusions +which we have drawn from man. As God stands over against man in Conscience, +and says to him: <q>Thou</q>; so man stands over against God in Nature, and may say to +him: <q>Thou.</q> Mulford, Republic of God, 28—<q>As the personality of man has its +foundation in the personality of God, so the realization by man of his own personality +always brings man nearer to God.</q> Robert Browning: <q>Quoth a young Sadducee: +<q>Reader of many rolls, Is it so certain we Have, as they tell us, souls?</q> <q>Son, there is +no reply!</q> The Rabbi bit his beard: <q>Certain, a soul have <emph>I</emph>—<emph>We</emph> may have none,</q> he +sneered. Thus Karshook, the Hiram's Hammer, The Right-hand Temple-column, +Taught babes in grace their grammar, And struck the simple, solemn.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is very common at this place to treat of what are called the Historical and the +Biblical Arguments for the existence of God—the former arguing, from the unity of +history, the latter arguing, from the unity of the Bible, that this unity must in each +case have for its cause and explanation the existence of God. It is a sufficient reason +for not discussing these arguments, that, without a previous belief in the existence of +God, no one will see unity either in history or in the Bible. Turner, the painter, +exhibited a picture which seemed all mist and cloud until he put a dab of scarlet into +it. That gave the true point of view, and all the rest became intelligible. So Christ's +coming and Christ's blood make intelligible both the Scriptures and human history. +He carries in his girdle the key to all mysteries. Schopenhauer, knowing no Christ, +admitted no philosophy of history. He regarded history as the mere fortuitous play +of individual caprice. Pascal: <q>Jesus Christ is the centre of everything, and the +object of everything, and he that does not know him knows nothing of nature, and +nothing of himself.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. The Ontological Argument, or Argument from our Abstract +and Necessary Ideas.</head> + +<p> +This argument infers the existence of God from the abstract and necessary +ideas of the human mind. It has three forms: +</p> + +<p> +1. That of Samuel Clarke. Space and time are attributes of substance +or being. But space and time are respectively infinite and eternal. There +must therefore be an infinite and eternal substance or Being to whom these +attributes belong. +</p> + +<p> +Gillespie states the argument somewhat differently. Space and time are +modes of existence. But space and time are respectively infinite and eternal. +There must therefore be an infinite and eternal Being who subsists +in these modes. But we reply: +</p> + +<p> +Space and time are neither attributes of substance nor modes of existence. +The argument, if valid, would prove that God is not mind but matter, +for that could not be mind, but only matter, of which space and time were +either attributes or modes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Ontological Argument is frequently called the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> argument, that is, the +argument from that which is logically prior, or earlier than experience, viz., our intuitive +ideas. All the forms of the Ontological Argument are in this sense <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign>. Space +and time are <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> ideas. See Samuel Clarke, Works, 2:521; Gillespie, Necessary +Existence of God. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Per contra</foreign>, see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 364: Calderwood, +Moral Philosophy, 226—<q>To begin, as Clarke did, with the proposition that <q>something +has existed from eternity,</q> is virtually to propose an argument after having assumed +what is to be proved. Gillespie's form of the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> argument, starting with the proposition +<pb n='086'/><anchor id='Pg086'/> +<q>infinity of extension is necessarily existing,</q> is liable to the same objection, +with the additional disadvantage of attributing a property of matter to the Deity.</q> +</p> + +<p> +H. B. Smith says that Brougham misrepresented Clarke: <q>Clarke's argument is in his +sixth proposition, and supposes the existence proved in what goes before. He aims here +to establish the infinitude and omnipresence of this First Being. He does not prove +<emph>existence</emph> from immensity.</q> But we reply, neither can he prove the <emph>infinity</emph> of God +from the immensity of space. Space and time are neither substances nor attributes, but +are rather relations; see Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 331-335; Cocker, Theistic Conception +of the World, 66-96. The doctrine that space and time are attributes or modes +of God's existence tends to materialistic pantheism like that of Spinoza, who held that +<q>the one and simple substance</q> (substantia una et unica) is known to us through the +two attributes of thought and extension; mind = God in the mode of thought; matter += God in the mode of extension. Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 127, says well that +an extended God is a material God; <q>space and time are attributes neither of matter +nor mind</q>; <q>we must carry the moral idea into the natural world, not the natural +idea into the moral world.</q> See also, Blunt, Dictionary Doct. and Hist. Theol., 740; +Porter, Human Intellect, 567. H. M. Stanley, on Space and Science, in Philos. Rev., Nov. +1898:615—<q>Space is not full of things, but things are spaceful.... Space is a form +of dynamic appearance.</q> Prof. C. A. Strong: <q>The world composed of consciousness +and other existences is not in space, though it may be in something of which space is +the symbol.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. That of Descartes. We have the idea of an infinite and perfect +Being. This idea cannot be derived from imperfect and finite things. +There must therefore be an infinite and perfect Being who is its cause. +</p> + +<p> +But we reply that this argument confounds the idea of the infinite with +an infinite idea. Man's idea of the infinite is not infinite but finite, and +from a finite effect we cannot argue an infinite cause. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This form of the Ontological Argument, while it is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign>, as based upon a necessary +idea of the human mind, is, unlike the other forms of the same argument, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a posteriori</foreign>, +as arguing from this idea, as an <emph>effect</emph>, to the existence of a Being who is its <emph>cause</emph>. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>A +posteriori</foreign> argument = from that which is later to that which is earlier, that is, from +effect to cause. The Cosmological, Teleological, and Anthropological Arguments are +arguments <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a posteriori</foreign>. Of this sort is the argument of Descartes; see Descartes, Meditation +3: <q>Hæc idea quæ in nobis est requirit Deum pro causa; Deusque proinde +existit.</q> The idea in men's minds is the impression of the workman's name stamped +indelibly on his work—the shadow cast upon the human soul by that unseen One of +whose being and presence it dimly informs us. Blunt, Dict. of Theol., 739; Saisset, Pantheism, +1:54—<q>Descartes sets out from a fact of consciousness, while Anselm sets out +from an abstract conception</q>; <q>Descartes's argument might be considered a branch of +the Anthropological or Moral Argument, but for the fact that this last proceeds from +man's constitution rather than from his abstract ideas.</q> See Bib. Sac., 1849:637. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. That of Anselm. We have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being. +But existence is an attribute of perfection. An absolutely perfect Being +must therefore exist. +</p> + +<p> +But we reply that this argument confounds ideal existence with real +existence. Our ideas are not the measure of external reality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Anselm, Proslogion, 2—<q>Id, quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellectu +solo.</q> See translation of the Proslogion, in Bib. Sac., 1851:529, 699; Kant, Critique, 368. +The arguments of Descartes and Anselm, with Kant's reply, are given in their original +form by Harris, in Journ. Spec. Philos., 15:420-428. The major premise here is not that +all perfect ideas imply the existence of the object which they represent, for then, as +Kant objects, I might argue from my perfect idea of a $100 bill that I actually possessed +the same, which would be far from the fact. So I have a perfect idea of a perfectly +evil being, of a centaur, of nothing,—but it does not follow that the evil being, +that the centaur, that nothing, exists. The argument is rather from the idea of absolute +and perfect Being—of <q>that, no greater than which can be conceived.</q> There can be +but one such being, and there can be but one such idea. +</p> + +<pb n='087'/><anchor id='Pg087'/> + +<p> +Yet, even thus understood, we cannot argue from the idea to the actual existence of +such a being. Case, Physical Realism, 173—<q>God is not an idea, and consequently cannot +be inferred from mere ideas.</q> Bowne, Philos. Theism, 43—The Ontological Argument +<q>only points out that the idea of the perfect must include the idea of existence; +but there is nothing to show that the self-consistent idea represents an objective reality.</q> +I can imagine the Sea-serpent, the Jinn of the Thousand and One Nights, <q>The +Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders.</q> The winged +horse of Uhland possessed every possible virtue, and only one fault,—it was dead. +If every perfect idea implied the reality of its object, there might be horses with +ten legs, and trees with roots in the air. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Anselm's argument implies,</q> says Fisher, in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:114, +<q>that existence <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>in re</foreign> is a constituent of the concept. It would conclude the existence +of a being from the definition of a word. This inference is justified only on the basis of +philosophical realism.</q> Dove, Logic of the Christ. Faith, 141—<q>The Ontological +Argument is the algebraic formula of the universe, which leads to a valid conclusion +with regard to real existence, only when we fill it in with objects with which we become +acquainted in the arguments <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a posteriori</foreign>.</q> See also Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:331, Dogm. +Theol., 1:221-241, and in Presb. Rev., April, 1884:212-227 (favoring the argument); +Fisher, Essays, 574; Thompson, Christian Theism, 171; H. B. Smith, Introd. to Christ. +Theol., 122; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:181-187; Studien und Kritiken, 1875:611-655. +</p> + +<p> +Dorner, in his Glaubenslehre, 1:197, gives us the best statement of the Ontological +Argument: <q>Reason thinks of God as existing. Reason would not be reason, if it did +not think of God as existing. Reason only is, upon the assumption that God is.</q> But +this is evidently not argument, but only vivid statement of the necessary assumption +of the existence of an absolute Reason which conditions and gives validity to ours. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Although this last must be considered the most perfect form of the Ontological +Argument, it is evident that it conducts us only to an ideal conclusion, +not to real existence. In common with the two preceding forms +of the argument, moreover, it tacitly assumes, as already existing in the +human mind, that very knowledge of God's existence which it would derive +from logical demonstration. It has value, therefore, simply as showing +what God must be, if he exists at all. +</p> + +<p> +But the existence of a Being indefinitely great, a personal Cause, Contriver +and Lawgiver, has been proved by the preceding arguments; for the +law of parsimony requires us to apply the conclusions of the first three +arguments to one Being, and not to many. To this one Being we may +now ascribe the infinity and perfection, the idea of which lies at the basis +of the Ontological Argument—ascribe them, not because they are demonstrably +his, but because our mental constitution will not allow us to think +otherwise. Thus clothing him with all perfections which the human mind +can conceive, and these in illimitable fullness, we have one whom we may +justly call God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +McCosh, Div. Govt., 12, note—<q>It is at this place, if we do not mistake, that the idea +of the Infinite comes in. The capacity of the human mind to form such an idea, or +rather its intuitive belief in an Infinite of which it feels that it cannot form an adequate +conception, may be no proof (as Kant maintains) of the existence of an infinite Being; +but it is, we are convinced, the means by which the mind is enabled to invest the Deity, +shown on other grounds to exist, with the attributes of infinity, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, to look on his +being, power, goodness, and all his perfections, as infinite.</q> Even Flint, Theism, 68, +who holds that we reach the existence of God by inference, speaks of <q>necessary conditions +of thought and feeling, and ineradicable aspirations, which force on us ideas of +absolute existence, infinity, and perfection, and will neither permit us to deny these +perfections to God, nor to ascribe them to any other being.</q> Belief in God is not the +conclusion of a demonstration, but the solution of a problem. Calderwood, Moral +Philosophy, 226—<q>Either the whole question is assumed in starting, or the Infinite is +not reached in concluding.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='088'/><anchor id='Pg088'/> + +<p> +Clarke, Christian Theology, 97-114, divides his proof into two parts: I. Evidence of +the existence of God from the intellectual starting-point: The discovery of <emph>Mind</emph> in +the universe is made, 1. through the intelligibleness of the universe to us; 2. through +the idea of cause; 3. through the presence of ends in the universe. II. Evidence of +the existence of God from the religious starting-point: The discovery of the <emph>good God</emph> is +made, 1. through the religious nature of man; 2. through the great dilemma—God +the best, or the worst; 3. through the spiritual experience of men, especially in Christianity. +So far as Dr. Clarke's proof is intended to be a statement, not of a primitive belief, +but of a logical process, we must hold it to be equally defective with the three forms +of proof which we have seen to furnish some corroborative evidence of God's existence. +Dr. Clarke therefore does well to add: <q>Religion was not produced by proof +of God's existence, and will not be destroyed by its insufficiency to some minds. Religion +existed before argument; in fact, it is the preciousness of religion that leads to the +seeking for all possible confirmations of the reality of God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The three forms of proof already mentioned—the Cosmological, the Teleological, and +the Anthropological Arguments—may be likened to the three arches of a bridge over +a wide and rushing river. The bridge has only two defects, but these defects are very +serious. The first is that one cannot get on to the bridge; the end toward the hither +bank is wholly lacking; the bridge of logical argument cannot be entered upon except +by assuming the validity of logical processes; this assumption takes for granted at the +outset the existence of a God who has made our faculties to act correctly; we get on +to the bridge, not by logical process, but only by a leap of intuition, and by assuming +at the beginning the very thing which we set out to prove. The second defect of the +so-called bridge of argument is that when one has once gotten on, he can never get off. +The connection with the further bank is also lacking. All the premises from which +we argue being finite, we are warranted in drawing only a finite conclusion. Argument +cannot reach the Infinite, and only an infinite Being is worthy to be called God. +We can get off from our logical bridge, not by logical process, but only by another and +final leap of intuition, and by once more assuming the existence of the infinite Being +whom we had so vainly sought to reach by mere argument. The process seems to be +referred to in <emph>Job 11:7—<q>Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto +perfection?</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +As a logical process this is indeed defective, since all logic as well as all +observation depends for its validity upon the presupposed existence of +God, and since this particular process, even granting the validity of logic +in general, does not warrant the conclusion that God exists, except upon a +second assumption that our abstract ideas of infinity and perfection are to +be applied to the Being to whom argument has actually conducted us. +</p> + +<p> +But although both ends of the logical bridge are confessedly wanting, the +process may serve and does serve a more useful purpose than that of mere +demonstration, namely, that of awakening, explicating, and confirming a +conviction which, though the most fundamental of all, may yet have been +partially slumbering for lack of thought. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Morell, Philos. Fragments, 177, 179—<q>We can, in fact, no more prove the existence of +a God by a logical argument, than we can prove the existence of an external world; but +none the less may we obtain as strong a <emph>practical</emph> conviction of the one, as the other.</q> +<q>We arrive at a scientific belief in the existence of God just as we do at any other possible +human truth. We <emph>assume</emph> it, as a hypothesis absolutely necessary to account for +the phenomena of the universe; and then evidences from every quarter begin to converge +upon it, until, in process of time, the common sense of mankind, cultivated and +enlightened by ever accumulating knowledge, pronounces upon the validity of the +hypothesis with a voice scarcely less decided and universal than it does in the case of +our highest scientific convictions.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 572—<q>What then is the purport and force +of the several arguments for the existence of God? We reply that these proofs are +the different modes in which faith expresses itself and seeks confirmation. In them +faith, or the object of faith, is more exactly conceived and defined, and in them is found +a corroboration, not arbitrary but substantial and valuable, of that faith which springs +<pb n='089'/><anchor id='Pg089'/> +from the soul itself. Such proofs, therefore, are neither on the one hand sufficient to +create and sustain faith, nor are they on the other hand to be set aside as of no value.</q> +A. J. Barrett: <q>The arguments are not so much a bridge in themselves, as they are +guys, to hold firm the great suspension-bridge of intuition, by which we pass the gulf +from man to God. Or, while they are not a ladder by which we may reach heaven, +they are the Ossa on Pelion, from whose combined height we may descry heaven.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Anselm: <q>Negligentia mihi videtur, si postquam confirmati sumus in fide non studemus +quod credimus intelligere.</q> Bradley, Appearance and Reality: <q>Metaphysics +is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons +is no less an instinct.</q> Illingworth, Div. and Hum. Personality, lect. III—<q>Belief +in a personal God is an instinctive judgment, progressively justified by reason.</q> +Knight, Essays in Philosophy, 241—The arguments are <q>historical memorials of the +efforts of the human race to vindicate to itself the existence of a reality of which it is +conscious, but which it cannot perfectly define.</q> H. Fielding, The Hearts of Men, 313—<q>Creeds +are the grammar of religion. They are to religion what grammar is to +speech. Words are the expression of our wants; grammar is the theory formed afterwards. +Speech never proceeded from grammar, but the reverse. As speech progresses +and changes from unknown causes, grammar must follow.</q> Pascal: <q>The +heart has reasons of its own which the reason does not know.</q> Frances Power Cobbe: +<q>Intuitions are God's tuitions.</q> On the whole subject, see Cudworth, Intel. System, +3:42; Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 150 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Curtis, Human Element in Inspiration, +242; Peabody, in Andover Rev., July, 1884; Hahn, History of Arguments for Existence +of God; Lotze, Philos. of Religion, 8-34; Am. Jour. Theol., Jan. 1906:53-71. +</p> + +<p> +Hegel, in his Logic, page 3, speaking of the disposition to regard the proofs of God's +existence as the only means of producing faith in God, says: <q>Such a doctrine would +find its parallel, if we said that eating was impossible before we had acquired a knowledge +of the chemical, botanical and zoölogical qualities of our food; and that we must +delay digestion till we had finished the study of anatomy and physiology.</q> It is a +mistake to suppose that there can be no religious <emph>life</emph> without a correct <emph>theory</emph> of life. +Must I refuse to drink water or to breathe air, until I can manufacture both for myself? +Some things are given to us. Among these things are <emph><q>grace and truth</q> (John 1:17; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 9)</emph>. +But there are ever those who are willing to take nothing as a free gift, and who insist +on working out all knowledge, as well as all salvation, by processes of their own. +Pelagianism, with its denial of the doctrines of grace, is but the further development +of a rationalism which refuses to accept primitive truths unless these can be logically +demonstrated. Since the existence of the soul, of the world, and of God cannot be +proved in this way, rationalism is led to curtail, or to misinterpret, the deliverances of +consciousness, and hence result certain systems now to be mentioned. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='090'/><anchor id='Pg090'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter III. Erroneous Explanations, And Conclusion.</head> + +<p> +Any correct explanation of the universe must postulate an intuitive +knowledge of the existence of the external world, of self, and of God. +The desire for scientific unity, however, has occasioned attempts to reduce +these three factors to one, and according as one or another of the three has +been regarded as the all-inclusive principle, the result has been Materialism, +Materialistic Idealism, or Idealistic Pantheism. This scientific impulse is +better satisfied by a system which we may designate as Ethical Monism. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We may summarize the present chapter as follows: 1. <hi rend='italic'>Materialism</hi>: Universe = +Atoms. Reply: Atoms can do nothing without force, and can be nothing (intelligible) +without ideas. 2. <hi rend='italic'>Materialistic Idealism</hi>: Universe = Force + Ideas. Reply: Ideas +belong to Mind, and Force can be exerted only by Will. 3. <hi rend='italic'>Idealistic Pantheism</hi>: +Universe = Immanent and Impersonal Mind and Will. Reply: Spirit in man shows +that the Infinite Spirit must be Transcendent and Personal Mind and Will. We are led +from these three forms of error to a conclusion which we may denominate 4. <hi rend='italic'>Ethical +Monism</hi>: Universe = Finite, partial, graded manifestation of the divine Life; Matter +being God's self-limitation under the law of necessity, Humanity being God's self-limitation +under the law of freedom, Incarnation and Atonement being God's self-limitations +under the law of grace. Metaphysical Monism, or the doctrine of one Substance, +Principle, or Ground of Being, is consistent with Psychological Dualism, or the doctrine +that the soul is personally distinct from matter on the one hand and from God on +the other. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Materialism.</head> + +<p> +Materialism is that method of thought which gives priority to matter, +rather than to mind, in its explanations of the universe. Upon this view, +material atoms constitute the ultimate and fundamental reality of which +all things, rational and irrational, are but combinations and phenomena. +Force is regarded as a universal and inseparable property of matter. +</p> + +<p> +The element of truth in materialism is the reality of the external world. +Its error is in regarding the external world as having original and independent +existence, and in regarding mind as its product. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Materialism regards atoms as the bricks of which the material universe, the house +we inhabit, is built. Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) estimates that, if a drop of +water were magnified to the size of our earth, the atoms of which it consists would +certainly appear larger than boy's marbles, and yet would be smaller than billiard balls. +Of these atoms, all things, visible and invisible, are made. Mind, with all its activities, +is a combination or phenomenon of atoms. <q>Man ist was er iszt: ohne Phosphor kein +Gedanke</q>—<q>One <emph>is</emph> what he <emph>eats</emph>: without phosphorus, no thought.</q> Ethics is a bill +of fare; and worship, like heat, is a mode of motion. Agassiz, however, wittily asked: +<q>Are fishermen, then, more intelligent than farmers, because they eat so much fish, +and therefore take in more phosphorus?</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is evident that much is here attributed to atoms which really belongs to force. +Deprive atoms of force, and all that remains is extension, which = space = zero. +Moreover, <q>if atoms <emph>are</emph> extended, they cannot be ultimate, for extension implies +divisibility, and that which is conceivably divisible cannot be a philosophical ultimate. +<pb n='091'/><anchor id='Pg091'/> +But, if atoms <emph>are not</emph> extended, then even an infinite multiplication and combination of +them could not produce an extended substance. Furthermore, an atom that is neither +extended substance nor thinking substance is inconceivable. The real ultimate is +force, and this force cannot be exerted by nothing, but, as we shall hereafter see, can +be exerted only by a personal Spirit, for this alone possesses the characteristics of reality, +namely, definiteness, unity, and activity.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Not only force but also intelligence must be attributed to atoms, before they can +explain any operation of nature. Herschel says not only that <q>the force of gravitation +seems like that of a universal will,</q> but that the atoms themselves, in recognizing +each other in order to combine, show a great deal of <q>presence of mind.</q> Ladd, +Introd. to Philosophy, 269—<q>A distinguished astronomer has said that every body in +the solar system is behaving as if it knew precisely how it ought to behave in consistency +with its own nature, and with the behavior of every other body in the same system.... +Each atom has danced countless millions of miles, with countless millions +of different partners, many of which required an important modification of its mode of +motion, without ever departing from the correct step or the right time.</q> J. P. Cooke, +Credentials of Science, 104, 177, suggests that something more than atoms is needed to +explain the universe. A correlating Intelligence and Will must be assumed. Atoms +by themselves would be like a heap of loose nails which need to be magnetized if they +are to hold together. All structures would be resolved, and all forms of matter would +disappear, if the Presence which sustains them were withdrawn. The atom, like the +monad of Leibnitz, is <q>parvus in suo genere deus</q>—<q>a little god in its nature</q>—only +because it is the expression of the mind and will of an immanent God. +</p> + +<p> +Plato speaks of men who are <q>dazzled by too near a look at material things.</q> They +do not perceive that these very material things, since they can be interpreted only in +terms of spirit, must themselves be essentially spiritual. Materialism is the explanation +of a world of which we know something—the world of mind—by a world of which we +know next to nothing—the world of matter. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 297, 298—<q>How +about your material atoms and brain-molecules? They have no real existence +save as objects of thought, and therefore the very thought, which you say your atoms +produce, turns out to be the essential precondition of their own existence.</q> With this +agree the words of Dr. Ladd: <q>Knowledge of matter involves repeated activities of +sensation and reflection, of inductive and deductive inference, of intuitional belief in +substance. These are all activities of mind. Only as the mind has a self-conscious life, +is any knowledge of what matter is, or can do, to be gained.... Everything is real +which is the permanent subject of changing states. That which touches, feels, sees, is +more real than that which is touched, felt, seen.</q> +</p> + +<p> +H. N. Gardner, Presb. Rev., 1885:301, 665, 666—<q>Mind gives to matter its chief meaning,—hence +matter alone can never explain the universe.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 31—<q>Mind +is not the <emph>product</emph> of nature, but the necessary <emph>constituent</emph> of nature, considered +as an ordered knowable system.</q> Fraser, Philos. of Theism: <q>An immoral act must +originate in the immoral agent; a physical effect is not <emph>known</emph> to originate in its +physical cause.</q> Matter, inorganic and organic, presupposes mind; but it is not true +that mind presupposes matter. LeConte: <q>If I could remove your brain cap, what +would I see? Only physical changes. But you—what do you perceive? Consciousness, +thought, emotion, will. Now take external nature, the Cosmos. The observer +from the outside sees only physical phenomena. But must there not be in this case +also—on the other side—psychical phenomena, a Self, a Person, a Will?</q> +</p> + +<p> +The impossibility of finding in matter, regarded as mere atoms, any of the attributes +of a cause, has led to a general abandonment of this old Materialism of Democritus, +Epicurus, Lucretius, Condillac, Holbach, Feuerbach, Büchner; and Materialistic +Idealism has taken its place, which instead of regarding force as a property of matter, +regards matter as a manifestation of force. From this section we therefore pass to +Materialistic Idealism, and inquire whether the universe can be interpreted simply as a +system of force and of ideas. A quarter of a century ago, John Tyndall, in his opening +address as President of the British Association at Belfast, declared that in matter +was to be found the promise and potency of every form of life. But in 1898, Sir William +Crookes, in his address as President of that same British Association, reversed the +apothegm, and declared that in life he saw the promise and potency of every form of +matter. See Lange, History of Materialism; Janet, Materialism; Fabri, Materialismus; +Herzog, Encyclopädie, art.: Materialismus; but esp., Stallo, Modern Physics, 148-170. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='092'/><anchor id='Pg092'/> + +<p> +In addition to the general error indicated above, we object to this system +as follows: +</p> + +<p> +1. In knowing matter, the mind necessarily judges itself to be different +in kind, and higher in rank, than the matter which it knows. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We here state simply an intuitive conviction. The mind, in using its physical organism +and through it bringing external nature into its service, recognizes itself as different +from and superior to matter. See Martineau, quoted in Brit. Quar., April, 1882:173, +and the article of President Thomas Hill in the Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1852:353—<q>All +that is really given by the act of sense-perception is the existence of the conscious +self, floating in boundless space and boundless time, surrounded and sustained +by boundless power. The material moved, which we at first think the great reality, is +only the shadow of a real being, which is immaterial.</q> Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, +317—<q>Imagine an infinitesimal being in the brain, watching the action of the molecules, +but missing the thought. So science observes the universe, but misses God.</q> +Hebberd, in Journ. Spec. Philos., April, 1886:135. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Browning, <q>the subtlest assertor of the soul in song,</q> makes the Pope, in +The Ring and the Book, say: <q>Mind is not matter, nor from matter, but above.</q> So +President Francis Wayland: <q>What is mind?</q> <q>No matter.</q> <q>What is matter?</q> +<q>Never mind.</q> Sully, The Human Mind, 2:369—<q>Consciousness is a reality wholly +disparate from material processes, and cannot therefore be resolved into these. +Materialism makes that which is immediately known (our mental states) subordinate +to that which is only indirectly or inferentially known (external things). Moreover, a +material entity existing <hi rend='italic'>per se</hi> out of relation to a cogitant mind is an absurdity.</q> As +materialists work out their theory, their so-called matter grows more and more ethereal, +until at last a stage is reached when it cannot be distinguished from what others +call spirit. Martineau: <q>The matter they describe is so exceedingly clever that it is +up to anything, even to writing Hamlet and discovering its own evolution. In short, +but for the spelling of its name, it does not seem to differ appreciably from our old +friends, Mind and God.</q> A. W. Momerie, in Christianity and Evolution, 54—<q>A being +conscious of his unity cannot possibly be formed out of a number of atoms unconscious +of their diversity. Any one who thinks this possible is capable of asserting that +half a dozen fools might be compounded into a single wise man.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Since the mind's attributes of (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) continuous identity, (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) self-activity, +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) unrelatedness to space, are different in kind and higher in rank than the +attributes of matter, it is rational to conclude that mind is itself different in +kind from matter and higher in rank than matter. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This is an argument from specific qualities to that which underlies and explains the +qualities. (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Memory proves personal identity. This is not an identity of material +atoms, for atoms change. The molecules that come cannot remember those that +depart. Some immutable part in the brain? organized or unorganized? Organized +decays; unorganized = soul. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Inertia shows that matter is not self-moving. It acts +only as it is acted upon. A single atom would never move. Two portions are necessary, +and these, in order to useful action, require adjustment by a power which does not +belong to matter. Evolution of the universe inexplicable, unless matter were first +moved by some power outside itself. See Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, 92. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The +highest activities of mind are independent of known physical conditions. Mind controls +and subdues the body. It does not cease to grow when the growth of the body +ceases. When the body nears dissolution, the mind often asserts itself most strikingly. +</p> + +<p> +Kant: <q>Unity of apprehension is possible on account of the transcendental unity +of self-consciousness.</q> I get my idea of unity from the indivisible self. Stout, Manual of +Psychology, 53—<q>So far as matter exists independently of its presentation to a cognitive +subject, it cannot have material properties, such as extension, hardness, color, +weight, etc.... The world of material phenomena presupposes a system of +immaterial agency. In this immaterial system the individual consciousness originates. +This agency, some say, is <emph>thought</emph>, others <emph>will</emph>.</q> A. J. Dubois, in Century Magazine, +Dec. 1894:228—Since each thought involves a molecular movement in the brain, and this +moves the whole universe, mind is the secret of the universe, and we should interpret +nature as the expression of underlying purpose. Science is mind following the traces +<pb n='093'/><anchor id='Pg093'/> +of mind. There can be no mind without antecedent mind. That all human beings +have the same mental modes shows that these modes are not due simply to environment. +Bowne: <q>Things act upon the mind and the mind reacts with knowledge. +Knowing is not a passive receiving, but an active construing.</q> Wundt: <q>We are +compelled to admit that the physical development is not the cause, but much more the +effect, of psychical development.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Paul Carus, Soul of Man, 52-64, defines soul as <q>the form of an organism,</q> and memory +as <q>the psychical aspect of the preservation of form in living substance.</q> This +seems to give priority to the organism rather than to the soul, regardless of the fact +that without soul no organism is conceivable. Clay cannot be the ancestor of the +potter, nor stone the ancestor of the mason, nor wood the ancestor of the carpenter. +W. N. Clarke, Christian Theology, 99—<q>The intelligibleness of the universe to us is +strong and ever present evidence that there is an all-pervading rational Mind, from +which the universe received its character.</q> We must add to the maxim, <q>Cogito, ergo +sum,</q> the other maxim, <q>Intelligo, ergo Deus est.</q> Pfleiderer, Philos. Relig., 1:273—<q>The +whole idealistic philosophy of modern times is in fact only the carrying out and +grounding of the conviction that Nature is ordered by Spirit and for Spirit, as a subservient +means for its eternal ends; that it is therefore not, as the heathen naturalism +thought, the one and all, the last and highest of things, but has the Spirit, and the +moral Ends over it, as its Lord and Master.</q> The consciousness by which things are +known precedes the things themselves, in the order of logic, and therefore cannot be +explained by them or derived from them. See Porter, Human Intellect, 22, 131, 132. +McCosh, Christianity and Positivism, chap. on Materialism; Divine Government, 71-94; +Intuitions, 140-145. Hopkins, Study of Man, 53-56; Morell, Hist. of Philosophy, 318-334; +Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 403; Theol. Eclectic, 6:555; Appleton, Works, 1:151-154; +Calderwood, Moral Philos., 235; Ulrici, Leib und Seele, 688-725, and synopsis, in Bap. +Quar., July, 1873:380. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. Mind rather than matter must therefore be regarded as the original +and independent entity, unless it can be scientifically demonstrated that +mind is material in its origin and nature. But all attempts to explain the +psychical from the physical, or the organic from the inorganic, are acknowledged +failures. The most that can be claimed is, that psychical are always +accompanied by physical changes, and that the inorganic is the basis and +support of the organic. Although the precise connection between the mind +and the body is unknown, the fact that the continuity of physical changes +is unbroken in times of psychical activity renders it certain that mind is not +transformed physical force. If the facts of sensation indicate the dependence +of mind upon body, the facts of volition equally indicate the dependence +of body upon mind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The chemist can produce <emph>organic</emph>, but not <emph>organized</emph>, substances. The <emph>life</emph> cannot be +produced from matter. Even in living things progress is secured only by plan. Multiplication +of desired advantage, in the Darwinian scheme, requires a selecting thought; +in other words the natural selection is artificial selection after all. John Fiske, +Destiny of the Creature, 109—<q>Cerebral physiology tells us that, during the present +life, although thought and feeling are always manifested in connection with a peculiar +form of matter, yet by no possibility can thought and feeling be in any sense the +product of matter. Nothing could be more grossly unscientific than the famous remark +of Cabanis, that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. It is not even +correct to say that thought goes on in the brain. What goes on in the brain is an +amazingly complex series of molecular movements, with which thought and feeling +are in some unknown way correlated, not as effects or as causes, but as concomitants.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Leibnitz's <q>preëstablished harmony</q> indicates the difficulty of defining the relation +between mind and matter. They are like two entirely disconnected clocks, the one of +which has a dial and indicates the hour by its hands, while the other without a dial +simultaneously indicates the same hour by its striking apparatus. To Leibnitz the +world is an aggregate of atomic souls leading absolutely separate lives. There is no +real action of one upon another. Everything in the monad is the development of its +individual unstimulated activity. Yet there is a preëstablished harmony of them all, +<pb n='094'/><anchor id='Pg094'/> +arranged from the beginning by the Creator. The internal development of each monad +is so adjusted to that of all the other monads, as to produce the false impression that +they are mutually influenced by each other (see Johnson, in Andover Rev., Apl. 1890:407, +408). Leibnitz's theory involves the complete rejection of the freedom of the human +will in the libertarian sense. To escape from this arbitrary connection of mind and +matter in Leibnitz's preëstablished harmony, Spinoza rejected the Cartesian doctrine +of two God-created substances, and maintained that there is but one fundamental +substance, namely, God himself (see Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 172). +</p> + +<p> +There is an increased flow of blood to the head in times of mental activity. Sometimes, +in intense heat of literary composition, the blood fairly surges through the +brain. No diminution, but further increase, of physical activity accompanies the +greatest efforts of mind. Lay a man upon a balance; fire a pistol shot or inject suddenly +a great thought into his mind; at once he will tip the balance, and tumble upon +his head. Romanes, Mind and Motion, 21—<q>Consciousness causes physical changes, +but not <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi>. To say that mind is a function of motion is to say that mind is a +function of itself, since motion exists only for mind. Better suppose the physical and +the psychical to be only one, as in the violin sound and vibration are one. Volition is +a cause in nature because it has cerebration for its obverse and inseparable side. But +if there is no motion without mind, then there can be no universe without God.</q>... +34—<q>Because within the limits of human experience mind is only known as associated +with brain, it does not follow that mind cannot exist without brain. Helmholtz's +explanation of the effect of one of Beethoven's sonatas on the brain may be perfectly +correct, but the explanation of the effect given by a musician may be equally correct +within its category.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, 1:§ 56—<q>Two things, mind and nervous +action, exist together, but we cannot imagine how they are related</q> (see review of +Spencer's Psychology, in N. Englander, July, 1873). Tyndall, Fragments of Science, +120—<q>The passage from the physics of the brain to the facts of consciousness is +unthinkable.</q> Schurman, Agnosticism and Religion, 95—<q>The metamorphosis of +vibrations into conscious ideas is a miracle, in comparison with which the floating of +iron or the turning of water into wine is easily credible.</q> Bain, Mind and Body, 131—There +is no break in the physical continuity. See Brit. Quar., Jan. 1874; art. by Herbert, +on Mind and the Science of Energy; McCosh, Intuitions, 145; Talbot, in Bap. +Quar., Jan. 1871. On Geulincx's <q>occasional causes</q> and Descartes's dualism, see +Martineau, Types, 144, 145, 156-158, and Study, 2:77. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. The materialistic theory, denying as it does the priority of spirit, +can furnish no sufficient cause for the highest features of the existing +universe, namely, its personal intelligences, its intuitive ideas, its free-will, +its moral progress, its beliefs in God and immortality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Herbert, Modern Realism Examined: <q>Materialism has no physical evidence of the +existence of consciousness in others. As it declares our fellow men to be destitute of +free volition, so it should declare them destitute of consciousness; should call them, as +well as brutes, pure automata. If physics are all, there is no God, but there is also no +man, existing.</q> Some of the early followers of Descartes used to kick and beat their +dogs, laughing meanwhile at their cries and calling them the <q>creaking of the machine.</q> +Huxley, who calls the brutes <q>conscious automata,</q> believes in the gradual banishment, +from all regions of human thought, of what we call spirit and spontaneity: +<q>A spontaneous act is an absurdity; it is simply an effect that is uncaused.</q> +</p> + +<p> +James, Psychology, 1:149—<q>The girl in Midshipman Easy could not excuse the illegitimacy +of her child by saying that <q>it was a very small one.</q> And consciousness, +however small, is an illegitimate birth in any philosophy that starts without it, and +yet professes to explain all facts by continued evolution.... Materialism denies +reality to almost all the impulses which we most cherish. Hence it will fail of universal +adoption.</q> Clerk Maxwell, Life, 391—<q>The atoms are a very tough lot, and can +stand a great deal of knocking about, and it is strange to find a number of them combining +to form a man of feeling.... 426—I have looked into most philosophical +systems, and I have seen none that will work without a God.</q> President E. B. +Andrews: <q>Mind is the only substantive thing in this universe, and all else is adjective. +Matter is not primordial, but is a function of spirit.</q> Theodore Parker: <q>Man +is the highest product of his own history. The discoverer finds nothing so tall or grand +<pb n='095'/><anchor id='Pg095'/> +as himself, nothing so valuable to him. The greatest star is at the small end of the +telescope—the star that is looking, not looked after, nor looked at.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Materialism makes men to be <q>a serio-comic procession of wax figures or of cunning +casts in clay</q> (Bowne). Man is <q>the cunningest of clocks.</q> But if there were nothing +but matter, there could be no materialism, for a system of thought, like materialism, +implies consciousness. Martineau, Types, preface, xii, xiii—<q>It was the irresistible +pleading of the moral consciousness which first drove me to rebel against the limits +of the merely scientific conception. It became incredible to me that nothing was +possible except the actual.... Is there then no <emph>ought to be</emph>, other than <emph>what is</emph>?</q> +Dewey, Psychology, 84—<q>A world without ideal elements would be one in which the +home would be four walls and a roof to keep out cold and wet; the table a mess for +animals; and the grave a hole in the ground.</q> Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat, stanza 72—<q>And +that inverted bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, +Lift not your hands to It for help—for it As impotently moves as you or I.</q> Victor +Hugo: <q>You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of bodily powers? Why then is +my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, +and eternal spring is in my heart.... The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I +hear the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Diman, Theistic Argument, 348—<q>Materialism can never explain the fact that matter +is always combined with force. Coördinate principles? then dualism, instead of +monism. Force cause of matter? then we preserve unity, but destroy materialism; +for we trace matter to an immaterial source. Behind multiplicity of natural forces +we must postulate some single power—which can be nothing but coördinating mind.</q> +Mark Hopkins sums up Materialism in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1879:490—<q>1. Man, who is +a person, is made by a thing, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, matter. 2. Matter is to be worshiped as man's +maker, if anything is to be (<emph>Rom. 1:25</emph>). 3. Man is to worship himself—his God is his +belly.</q> See also Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 25-31, Types, 1: preface, xii, +xiii, and Study, 1:248, 250, 345; Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, 145-161; +Buchanan, Modern Atheism, 247, 248; McCosh, in International Rev., Jan. 1895; Contemp. +Rev., Jan. 1875, art.: Man Transcorporeal; Calderwood, Relations of Mind and +Brain; Laycock, Mind and Brain; Diman, Theistic Argument, 358; Wilkinson, in Present +Day Tracts, 3:no. 17; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:487-499; A. H. Strong, Philos. and +Relig., 31-38. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Materialistic Idealism.</head> + +<p> +Idealism proper is that method of thought which regards all knowledge +as conversant only with affections of the percipient mind. +</p> + +<p> +Its element of truth is the fact that these affections of the percipient +mind are the conditions of our knowledge. Its error is in denying that +through these and in these we know that which exists independently of our +consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +The idealism of the present day is mainly a materialistic idealism. It +defines matter and mind alike in terms of sensation, and regards both as +opposite sides or successive manifestations of one underlying and unknowable +force. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Modern subjective idealism is the development of a principle found as far back as +Locke. Locke derived all our knowledge from sensation; the mind only combines +ideas which sensation furnishes, but gives no material of its own. Berkeley held that +externally we can be sure only of sensations,—cannot be sure that any external world +exists apart from mind. Berkeley's idealism, however, was objective; for he maintained +that while things do not exist independently of consciousness, they do exist independently +of <emph>our</emph> consciousness, namely, in the mind of God, who in a correct philosophy +takes the place of a mindless external world as the cause of our ideas. Kant, in like +manner, held to existences outside of our own minds, although he regarded these existences +as unknown and unknowable. Over against these forms of objective idealism +we must put the subjective idealism of Hume, who held that internally also we cannot +be sure of anything but mental phenomena; we know thoughts, feelings and volitions, +but we do not know mental substance within, any more than we know material substance +without; our ideas are a string of beads, without any string; we need no cause +<pb n='096'/><anchor id='Pg096'/> +for these ideas, in an external world, a soul, or God. Mill, Spencer, Bain and Tyndall +are Humists, and it is their subjective idealism which we oppose. +</p> + +<p> +All these regard the material atom as a mere centre of force, or a hypothetical cause +of sensations. Matter is therefore a manifestation of force, as to the old materialism +force was a property of matter. But if matter, mind and God are nothing but sensations, +then the body itself is nothing but sensations. There is no <emph>body</emph> to have the sensations, +and no <emph>spirit</emph>, either human or divine, to produce them. John Stuart Mill, in +his Examination of Sir William Hamilton, 1:234-253, makes sensations the only original +sources of knowledge. He defines matter as <q>a permanent possibility of sensation,</q> +and mind as <q>a series of feelings aware of itself.</q> So Huxley calls matter <q>only a +name for the unknown cause of the states of consciousness</q>; although he also declares: +<q>If I am compelled to choose between the materialism of a man like Büchner and the +idealism of Berkeley, I would have to agree with Berkeley.</q> He would hold to the +priority of matter, and yet regard matter as wholly ideal. Since John Stuart Mill, of +all the materialistic idealists, gives the most precise definitions of matter and of mind, +we attempt to show the inadequacy of his treatment. +</p> + +<p> +The most complete refutation of subjective idealism is that of Sir William Hamilton, +in his Metaphysics, 348-372, and Theories of Sense-perception—the reply to Brown. +See condensed statement of Hamilton's view, with estimate and criticism, in Porter, +Human Intellect, 236-240, and on Idealism, 129, 132. Porter holds that original perception +gives us simply affections of our own sensorium; as cause of these, we gain knowledge +of extended externality. So Sir William Hamilton: <q>Sensation proper has no +object but a subject-object.</q> But both Porter and Hamilton hold that through these +sensations we know that which exists independently of our sensations. Hamilton's +natural realism, however, was an exaggeration of the truth. Bowne, Introd. to Psych. +Theory, 257, 258—<q>In Sir William Hamilton's desire to have no go-betweens in perception, +he was forced to maintain that every sensation is felt where it seems to be, and +hence that the mind fills out the entire body. Likewise he had to affirm that the object +in vision is not the thing, but the rays of light, and even the object itself had, at last, +to be brought into consciousness. Thus he reached the absurdity that the true object +in perception is something of which we are totally unconscious.</q> Surely we cannot +be immediately conscious of what is outside of consciousness. James, Psychology, 1:11—<q>The +terminal organs are telephones, and brain-cells are the receivers at which the +mind listens.</q> Berkeley's view is to be found in his Principles of Human Knowledge, +§ 18 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> See also Presb. Rev., Apl. 1885:301-315; Journ. Spec. Philos., 1884:246-260, 383-399; +Tulloch, Mod. Theories, 360, 361; Encyc. Britannica, art.: Berkeley. +</p> + +<p> +There is, however, an idealism which is not open to Hamilton's objections, and to +which most recent philosophers give their adhesion. It is the objective idealism of +Lotze. It argues that we know nothing of the extended world except through the +forces which impress our nervous organism. These forces take the form of vibrations +of air or ether, and we interpret them as sound, light, or motion, according as they +affect our nerves of hearing, sight, or touch. But the only force which we immediately +know is that of our own wills, and we can either not understand matter at all or we +must understand it as the product of a will comparable to our own. Things are simply +<q>concreted laws of action,</q> or divine ideas to which permanent reality has been given +by divine will. What we perceive in the normal exercise of our faculties has existence +not only for us but for all intelligent beings and for God himself: in other words, our +idealism is not subjective, but objective. We have seen in the previous section that +atoms cannot explain the universe,—they presuppose both ideas and force. We now +see that this force presupposes will, and these ideas presuppose mind. But, as it still +may be claimed that this mind is not self-conscious mind and that this will is not personal +will, we pass in the next section to consider Idealistic Pantheism, of which these +claims are characteristic. Materialistic Idealism, in truth, is but a half-way house +between Materialism and Pantheism, in which no permanent lodging is to be found by +the logical intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +Lotze, Outlines of Metaphysics, 152—<q>The objectivity of our cognition consists +therefore in this, that it is not a meaningless play of mere seeming; but it brings +before us a world whose coherency is ordered in pursuance of the injunction of +the sole Reality in the world, to wit, the Good. Our cognition thus possesses more +of truth than if it copied exactly a world that has no value in itself. Although it +does not comprehend in what manner all that is phenomenon is presented to the +view, still it understands what is the meaning of it all; and is like to a spectator +<pb n='097'/><anchor id='Pg097'/> +who comprehends the æsthetic significance of that which takes place on the stage of a +theatre, and would gain nothing essential if he were to see besides the machinery by +means of which the changes are effected on the stage.</q> Professor C. A. Strong: <q>Perception +is a shadow thrown upon the mind by a thing-in-itself. The shadow is the symbol +of the thing; and, as shadows are soulless and dead, physical objects may seem soulless +and dead, while the reality symbolized is never so soulful and alive. Consciousness is +reality. The only existence of which we can conceive is mental in its nature. All +existence <emph>for</emph> consciousness is existence <emph>of</emph> consciousness. The horse's shadow accompanies +him, but it does not help him to draw the cart. The brain-event is simply the +mental state itself regarded from the point of view of the perception.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Aristotle: <q>Substance is in its nature prior to relation</q> = there can be no relation +without things to be related. Fichte: <q>Knowledge, just because it is knowledge, is +not reality,—it comes not first, but second.</q> Veitch, Knowing and Being, 216, 217, 292, +293—<q>Thought can do nothing, except as it is a synonym for Thinker.... Neither +the finite nor the infinite consciousness, alone or together, can constitute an object +external, or explain its existence. The existence of a thing logically precedes the +perception of it. Perception is not creation. It is not the thinking that makes the +ego, but the ego that makes the thinking.</q> Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: +<q>Divine thoughts presuppose a divine Being. God's thoughts do not constitute the +real world. The real force does not lie in them,—it lies in the divine Being, as living, +active Will.</q> Here was the fundamental error of Hegel, that he regarded the Universe +as mere Idea, and gave little thought to the Love and the Will that constitute it. See +John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, 1:75; 2:80; Contemp. Rev., Oct. 1872: art. on Huxley; +Lowndes, Philos. Primary Beliefs, 115-143; Atwater (on Ferrier), in Princeton Rev., +1857:258, 280; Cousin, Hist. Philosophy, 2:239-343; Veitch's Hamilton, (Blackwood's +Philos. Classics,) 176, 191; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 58-74. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +To this view we make the following objections: +</p> + +<p> +1. Its definition of matter as a <q>permanent possibility of sensation</q> +contradicts our intuitive judgment that, in knowing the phenomena of +matter, we have direct knowledge of substance as underlying phenomena, +as distinct from our sensations, and as external to the mind which +experiences these sensations. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Bowne, Metaphysics, 432—<q>How the possibility of an odor and a flavor can be the +cause of the yellow color of an orange is probably unknowable, except to a mind that +can see that two and two may make five.</q> See Iverach's Philosophy of Spencer Examined, +in Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 29. Martineau, Study, 1:102-112—<q>If external +impressions are telegraphed to the brain, intelligence must receive the message at +the beginning as well as deliver it at the end.... It is the external object which +gives the possibility, not the possibility which gives the external object. The mind +cannot make both its <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>cognita</foreign> and its <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>cognitio</foreign>. It cannot dispense with standing-ground +for its own feet, or with atmosphere for its own wings.</q> Professor Charles A. +Strong: <q>Kant held to things-in-themselves back of physical phenomena, as well as to +things-in-themselves back of mental phenomena; he thought things-in-themselves +back of physical might be identical with things-in-themselves back of mental phenomena. +And since mental phenomena, on this theory, are not specimens of reality, and +reality manifests itself indifferently through them and through physical phenomena, +he naturally concluded that we have no ground for supposing reality to be like either—that +we must conceive of it as <q>weder Materie noch ein denkend Wesen</q>—<q>neither +matter nor a thinking being</q>—a theory of the Unknowable. Would that it had been +also the Unthinkable and the Unmentionable!</q> Ralph Waldo Emerson was a subjective +idealist; but, when called to inspect a farmer's load of wood, he said to his +company: <q>Excuse me a moment, my friends; we have to attend to these matters, +just as if they were real.</q> See Mivart, On Truth, 71-141. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Its definition of mind as a <q>series of feelings aware of itself</q> +contradicts our intuitive judgment that, in knowing the phenomena of +mind, we have direct knowledge of a spiritual substance of which these +phenomena are manifestations, which retains its identity independently of +<pb n='098'/><anchor id='Pg098'/> +our consciousness, and which, in its knowing, instead of being the passive +recipient of impressions from without, always acts from within by a power +of its own. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +James, Psychology, 1:226—<q>It seems as if the elementary psychic fact were not +<emph>thought</emph>, or <emph>this thought</emph>, or <emph>that thought</emph>, but <emph>my thought</emph>, every thought being owned. +The universal conscious fact is not <q>feelings and thoughts exist,</q> but <q>I think,</q> and +<q>I feel.</q></q> Professor James is compelled to say this, even though he begins his Psychology +without insisting upon the existence of a soul. Hamilton's Reid, 443—<q>Shall I think +that thought can stand by itself? or that ideas can feel pleasure or pain?</q> R. T. Smith, +Man's Knowledge, 44—<q>We say <q>my notions and my passions,</q> and when we use these +phrases we imply that our central self is felt to be something different from the notions +or passions which belong to it or characterize it for a time.</q> Lichtenberg: <q>We should +say, <q>It thinks;</q> just as we say, <q>It lightens,</q> or <q>It rains.</q> In saying <q>Cogito,</q> the +philosopher goes too far if he translates it, <q>I think.</q></q> Are the faculties, then, an army +without a general, or an engine without a driver? In that case we should not <emph>have</emph> +sensations,—we should only <hi rend='italic'>be</hi> sensations. +</p> + +<p> +Professor C. A. Strong: <q>I have knowledge of <emph>other minds</emph>. This non-empirical +knowledge—transcendent knowledge of things-in-themselves, derived neither from +experience nor reasoning, and assuming that like consequents (intelligent movements) +must have like antecedents (thoughts and feelings), and also assuming instinctively +that something exists outside of my own mind—this refutes the post-Kantian phenomenalism. +<emph>Perception</emph> and <emph>memory</emph> also involve transcendence. In both I transcend +the bounds of experience, as truly as in my knowledge of other minds. In memory +I recognize a <emph>past</emph>, as distinguished from the present. In perception I cognize a +possibility of <emph>other</emph> experiences like the present, and this alone gives the sense of +permanence and reality. Perception and memory refute phenomenalism. Things-in-themselves +must be assumed in order to fill the gaps between individual minds, and +to give coherence and intelligibility to the universe, and so to avoid pluralism. If +matter can influence and even extinguish our minds, it must have some force of its +own, some existence in itself. If consciousness is an evolutionary product, it must +have arisen from simpler mental facts. But these simpler mental facts are only another +name for things-in-themselves. A deep prerational instinct compels us to recognize +them, for they cannot be logically demonstrated. We must assume them in order +to give continuity and intelligibility to our conceptions of the universe.</q> See, on +Bain's Cerebral Psychology, Martineau's Essays, 1:265. On the physiological method +of mental philosophy, see Talbot, in Bap. Quar., 1871:1; Bowen, in Princeton Rev., +March, 1878:423-450; Murray, Psychology, 279-287. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. In so far as this theory regards mind as the obverse side of matter, +or as a later and higher development from matter, the mere reference of +both mind and matter to an underlying force does not save the theory from +any of the difficulties of pure materialism already mentioned; since in +this case, equally with that, force is regarded as purely physical, and the +priority of spirit is denied. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer, Psychology, quoted by Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, 2:80—<q>Mind and +nervous action are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing. Yet we +remain utterly incapable of seeing, or even of imagining, how the two are related. +Mind still continues to us a something without kinship to other things.</q> Owen, Anatomy +of Vertebrates, quoted by Talbot, Bap. Quar., Jan. 1871:5—<q>All that I know of +matter and mind in themselves is that the former is an external centre of force, and +the latter an internal centre of force.</q> New Englander, Sept. 1883:636—<q>If the atom +be a mere centre of force and not a real thing in itself, then the atom is a supersensual +essence, an immaterial being. To make immaterial matter the source of conscious +mind is to make matter as wonderful as an immortal soul or a personal Creator.</q> See +New Englander, July, 1875:532-535; Martineau, Study, 102-130, and Relig. and Mod. +Materialism, 25—<q>If it takes mind to construe the universe, how can the negation of +mind constitute it?</q> +</p> + +<p> +David J. Hill, in his Genetic Philosophy, 200, 201, seems to deny that thought precedes +force, or that force precedes thought: <q>Objects, or things in the external world, +<pb n='099'/><anchor id='Pg099'/> +may be elements of a thought-process in a cosmic subject, without themselves being +conscious.... A true analysis and a rational genesis require the equal recognition +of both the objective and the subjective elements of experience, without priority in +time, separation in space or disruption of being. So far as our minds can penetrate +reality, as disclosed in the activities of thought, we are everywhere confronted with +a Dynamic Reason.</q> In Dr. Hill's account of the genesis of the universe, however, the +unconscious comes first, and from it the conscious seems to be derived. Consciousness +of the object is only the obverse side of the object of consciousness. This is, as Martineau, +Study, 1:341, remarks, <q>to take the sea on board the boat.</q> We greatly prefer +the view of Lotze, 2:641—<q>Things are acts of the Infinite wrought within minds alone, +or states which the Infinite experiences nowhere but in minds.... Things and +events are the sum of those actions which the highest Principle performs in all spirits so +uniformly and coherently, that to these spirits there must seem to be a world of substantial +and efficient things existing in space outside themselves.</q> The data from +which we draw our inferences as to the nature of the external world being mental and +spiritual, it is more rational to attribute to that world a spiritual reality than a kind of +reality of which our experience knows nothing. See also Schurman, Belief in God, +208, 225. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. In so far as this theory holds the underlying force of which matter +and mind are manifestations to be in any sense intelligent or voluntary, it +renders necessary the assumption that there is an intelligent and voluntary +Being who exerts this force. Sensations and ideas, moreover, are explicable +only as manifestations of Mind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Many recent Christian thinkers, as Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 13-15, 29-36, +42-52, would define mind as a function of matter, matter as a function of force, force +as a function of will, and therefore as the power of an omnipresent and personal God. +All force, except that of man's free will, is the will of God. So Herschel, Lectures, 460; +Argyll, Reign of Law, 121-127; Wallace on Nat. Selection, 363-371; Martineau, Essays, +1:63, 121, 145, 265; Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 146-162. These writers are led to their +conclusion in large part by the considerations that nothing dead can be a proper cause; +that will is the only cause of which we have immediate knowledge; that the forces of +nature are intelligible only when they are regarded as exertions of will. Matter, therefore, +is simply centres of force—the regular and, as it were, automatic expression of +God's mind and will. Second causes in nature are only secondary activities of the great +First Cause. +</p> + +<p> +This view is held also by Bowne, in his Metaphysics. He regards only personality as +real. Matter is phenomenal, although it is an activity of the divine will outside of us. +Bowne's phenomenalism is therefore an objective idealism, greatly preferable to that +of Berkeley who held to God's energizing indeed, but only within the soul. This +idealism of Bowne is not pantheism, for it holds that, while there are no second +causes in nature, man is a second cause, with a personality distinct from that of +God, and lifted above nature by his powers of free will. Royce, however, in his Religious +Aspect of Philosophy, and in his The World and the Individual, makes man's consciousness +a part or aspect of a universal consciousness, and so, instead of making God +come to consciousness in man, makes man come to consciousness in God. While this +scheme seems, in one view, to save God's personality, it may be doubted whether it +equally guarantees man's personality or leaves room for man's freedom, responsibility, +sin and guilt. Bowne, Philos. Theism, 175—<q><q>Universal reason</q> is a class-term which +denotes no possible existence, and which has reality only in the specific existences from +which it is abstracted.</q> Bowne claims that the impersonal finite has only such otherness +as a thought or act has to its subject. There is no substantial existence except in +persons. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: <q>Neo-Kantianism erects into a God the +mere form of self-consciousness in general, that is, confounds consciousness <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>überhaupt</foreign> +with a <emph>universal</emph> consciousness.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 318-343, esp. 328—<q>Is there anything in +existence but myself? Yes. To escape solipsism I must admit at least other persons. +Does the world of apparent objects exist for me only? No; it exists for others also, +so that we live in a common world. Does this common world consist in anything more +than a similarity of impressions in finite minds, so that the world apart from these is +nothing? This view cannot be disproved, but it accords so ill with the impression of +<pb n='100'/><anchor id='Pg100'/> +our total experience that it is practically impossible. Is then the world of things a +continuous existence of some kind independent of finite thought and consciousness? +This claim cannot be demonstrated, but it is the only view that does not involve insuperable +difficulties. What is the nature and where is the place of this cosmic existence? +That is the question between Realism and Idealism. Realism views things as existing +in a real space, and as true ontological realities. Idealism views both them and the +space in which they are supposed to be existing as existing only in and for a cosmic +Intelligence, and apart from which they are absurd and contradictory. Things are +independent of <emph>our</emph> thought, but not independent of <emph>all</emph> thought, in a lumpish materiality +which is the antithesis and negation of consciousness.</q> See also Martineau, +Study, 1:214-230, 341. For advocacy of the substantive existence of second causes, +see Porter, Hum. Intellect, 582-588; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:596; Alden, Philosophy, 48-80; +Hodgson, Time and Space, 149-218; A. J. Balfour, in Mind, Oct. 1893: 430. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Idealistic Pantheism.</head> + +<p> +Pantheism is that method of thought which conceives of the universe as +the development of one intelligent and voluntary, yet impersonal, substance, +which reaches consciousness only in man. It therefore identifies +God, not with each individual object in the universe, but with the totality +of things. The current Pantheism of our day is idealistic. +</p> + +<p> +The elements of truth in Pantheism are the intelligence and voluntariness +of God, and his immanence in the universe; its error lies in denying +God's personality and transcendence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pantheism denies the real existence of the finite, at the same time that it deprives the +Infinite of self-consciousness and freedom. See Hunt, History of Pantheism; Manning, +Half-truths and the Truth; Bayne, Christian Life, Social and Individual, 21-53; Hutton, +on Popular Pantheism, in Essays, 1:55-76—<q>The pantheist's <q>I believe in God</q>, is +a contradiction. He says: <q>I perceive the external as different from myself; but on +further reflection, I perceive that this external was itself the percipient agency.</q> So +the worshiped is really the worshiper after all.</q> Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, +173—<q>Man is a bottle of the ocean's water, in the ocean, temporarily distinguishable +by its limitation within the bottle, but lost again in the ocean, so soon as these fragile +limits are broken.</q> Martineau, Types, 1:23—Mere immanency excludes Theism; +transcendency leaves it still possible; 211-225—Pantheism declares that <q>there is nothing +but God; he is not only sole cause but entire effect; he is all in all.</q> Spinoza has been +falsely called <q>the God-intoxicated man.</q> <q>Spinoza, on the contrary, translated God +into the universe; it was Malebranche who transfigured the universe into God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The later Brahmanism is pantheistic. Rowland Williams, Christianity and Hinduism, +quoted in Mozley on Miracles, 284—<q>In the final state personality vanishes. You will +not, says the Brahman, accept the term <q>void</q> as an adequate description of the mysterious +nature of the soul, but you will clearly apprehend soul, in the final state, to be +unseen and ungrasped being, thought, knowledge, joy—no other than very God.</q> +Flint, Theism, 69—<q>Where the will is without energy, and rest is longed for as the end +of existence, as among the Hindus, there is marked inability to think of God as cause +or will, and constant inveterate tendency to pantheism.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Hegel denies God's transcendence: <q>God is not a spirit beyond the stars; he is spirit +in all spirit</q>; which means that God, the impersonal and unconscious Absolute, comes +to consciousness only in man. If the eternal system of abstract thoughts were itself +conscious, finite consciousness would disappear; hence the alternative is either <emph>no God</emph>, +or <emph>no man</emph>. Stirling: <q>The Idea, so conceived, is a blind, dumb, invisible idol, and +the theory is the most hopeless theory that has ever been presented to humanity.</q> It +is practical autolatry, or self-deification. The world is reduced to a mere process of +logic; thought thinks; there is thought without a thinker. To this doctrine of Hegel +we may well oppose the remarks of Lotze: <q>We cannot make mind the equivalent of the +infinitive <emph>to think</emph>,—we feel that it must be that which thinks; the essence of things +cannot be either existence or activity,—it must be that which exists and that which +acts. Thinking means nothing, if it is not the thinking of a thinker; acting and working +mean nothing, if we leave out the conception of a subject distinguishable from +them and from which they proceed.</q> To Hegel, Being <emph>is</emph> Thought; to Spinoza, Being +<pb n='101'/><anchor id='Pg101'/> +<emph>has</emph> Thought + Extension; the truth seems to be that Being <emph>has</emph> Thought + Will, and +<emph>may</emph> reveal itself in Extension and Evolution (Creation). +</p> + +<p> +By other philosophers, however, Hegel is otherwise interpreted. Prof. H. Jones, in +Mind, July, 1893: 289-306, claims that Hegel's fundamental Idea is not Thought, but +Thinking: <q>The universe to him was not a system of thoughts, but a thinking reality, +manifested most fully in man.... The fundamental reality is the universal intelligence +whose operation we should seek to detect in all things. All reality is ultimately +explicable as Spirit, or Intelligence,—hence our ontology must be a Logic, and the laws +of things must be laws of thinking.</q> Sterrett, in like manner, in his Studies in Hegel's +Philosophy of Religion, 17, quotes Hegel's Logic, Wallace's translation, 89, 91, 236: +<q>Spinoza's <emph>Substance</emph> is, as it were, a dark, shapeless abyss, which devours all definite +content as utterly null, and produces from itself nothing that has positive subsistence +in itself.... God is Substance,—he is, however, no less the Absolute Person.</q> This +is essential to religion, but this, says Hegel, Spinoza never perceived: <q>Everything +depends upon the Absolute Truth being perceived, not merely as Substance, but as Subject.</q> +God is self-conscious and self-determining Spirit. Necessity is excluded. Man +is free and immortal. Men are not mechanical parts of God, nor do they lose their +identity, although they <emph>find themselves</emph> truly only in him. With this estimate of Hegel's +system, Caird, Erdmann and Mulford substantially agree. This is Tennyson's <q>Higher +Pantheism.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Seth, Ethical Principles, 440—<q>Hegel conceived the superiority of his system to Spinozism +to lie in the substitution of Subject for Substance. The true Absolute must contain, +instead of abolishing, relations; the true Monism must include, instead of excluding, +Pluralism. A One which, like Spinoza's Substance, or the Hegelian Absolute, does +not enable us to think the Many, cannot be the true One—the unity of the Manifold.... +Since evil exists, Schopenhauer substituted for Hegel's Panlogism, which +asserted the identity of the rational and the real, a blind impulse of life,—for absolute +Reason he substituted a reasonless Will</q>—a system of practical pessimism. Alexander, +Theories of Will, 5—<q>Spinoza recognized no distinction between will and intellectual +affirmation or denial.</q> John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:107—<q>As there +is no reason in the conception of pure space why any figures or forms, lines, surfaces, +solids, should arise in it, so there is no reason in the pure colorless abstraction of Infinite +Substance why any world of finite things and beings should ever come into existence. +It is the grave of all things, the productive source of nothing.</q> Hegel called Schelling's +Identity or Absolute <q>the infinite night in which all cows are black</q>—an allusion to +Goethe's Faust, part 2, act 1, where the words are added: <q>and cats are gray.</q> +Although Hegel's preference of the term Subject, instead of the term Substance, has led +many to maintain that he believed in a personality of God distinct from that of man, his +over-emphasis of the Idea, and his comparative ignoring of the elements of Love and +Will, leave it still doubtful whether his Idea was anything more than unconscious and +impersonal intelligence—less materialistic than that of Spinoza indeed, yet open to +many of the same objections. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We object to this system as follows: +</p> + +<p> +1. Its idea of God is self-contradictory, since it makes him infinite, yet +consisting only of the finite; absolute, yet existing in necessary relation to +the universe; supreme, yet shut up to a process of self-evolution and +dependent for self-consciousness on man; without self-determination, yet +the cause of all that is. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Saisset, Pantheism, 148—<q>An imperfect God, yet perfection arising from imperfection.</q> +Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1:13—<q>Pantheism applies to God a principle of growth +and imperfection, which belongs only to the finite.</q> Calderwood, Moral Philos., 245—<q>Its +first requisite is moment, or movement, which it assumes, but does not account +for.</q> Caro's sarcasm applies here: <q>Your God is not yet made—he is in process of +manufacture.</q> See H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 25. Pantheism is practical atheism, +for impersonal spirit is only blind and necessary force. Angelus Silesius: <q>Wir +beten <q>Es gescheh, mein Herr und Gott, dein Wille</q>; Und sieh', Er hat nicht Will',—Er +ist ein ew'ge Stille</q>—which Max Müller translates as follows: <q>We pray, <q>O Lord +our God, Do thou thy holy Will</q>; and see! God has no will; He is at peace and still.</q> +Angelus Silesius consistently makes God dependent for self-consciousness on man: +<pb n='102'/><anchor id='Pg102'/> +<q>I know that God cannot live An instant without me; He must give up the ghost, If I +should cease to be.</q> Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: <q>Hegelianism destroys both +God and man. It reduces man to an object of the universal Thinker, and leaves this +universal Thinker without any true personality.</q> Pantheism is a game of solitaire, in +which God plays both sides. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Its assumed unity of substance is not only without proof, but it directly +contradicts our intuitive judgments. These testify that we are not parts and +particles of God, but distinct personal subsistences. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Martineau, Essays, 1:158—<q>Even for immanency, there must be something wherein +to dwell, and for life, something whereon to act.</q> Many systems of monism contradict +consciousness; they confound harmony between two with absorption in one. <q>In +Scripture we never find the universe called τὸ πᾶν, for this suggests the idea of a self-contained +unity: we have everywhere τὰ πάντα instead.</q> The Bible recognizes the +element of truth in pantheism—God is <q><emph>through all</emph></q>; also the element of truth in +mysticism—God is <q><emph>in you all</emph></q>; but it adds the element of transcendence which both +these fail to recognize—God is <emph><q>above all</q> (Eph. 4:6)</emph>. See Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Orig. +of Christianity, 539. G. D. B. Pepper: <q>He who is over all and in all is yet distinct +from all. If one is over a thing, he is not that very thing which he is over. If one +is in something, he must be distinct from that something. And so the universe, over +which and in which God is, must be thought of as something distinct from God. The +creation cannot be identical with God, or a mere form of God.</q> We add, however, +that it may be a manifestation of God and dependent upon God, as our thoughts +and acts are manifestations of our mind and will and dependent upon our mind and will, +yet are not themselves our mind and will. +</p> + +<p> +Pope wrote: <q>All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is and +God the soul.</q> But Case, Physical Realism, 193, replies: <q>Not so. Nature is to God +as works are to a man; and as man's works are not his body, so neither is nature +the body of God.</q> Matthew Arnold, On Heine's Grave: <q>What are we all but a mood, +A single mood of the life Of the Being in whom we exist, Who alone is all things +in one?</q> Hovey, Studies, 51—<q>Scripture recognizes the element of truth in pantheism, +but it also teaches the existence of a world of things, animate and inanimate, in +distinction from God. It represents men as prone to worship the creature more than the +Creator. It describes them as sinners worthy of death ... moral agents.... It no +more thinks of men as being literally parts of God, than it thinks of children as being +parts of their parents, or subjects as being parts of their king.</q> A. J. F. Behrends: +<q>The true doctrine lies between the two extremes of a crass dualism which makes God +and the world two self-contained entities, and a substantial monism in which the universe +has only a phenomenal existence. There is no identity of substance nor division of the +divine substance. The universe is eternally dependent, the product of the divine +<emph>Word</emph>, not simply <emph>manufactured</emph>. Creation is primarily a spiritual act.</q> Prof. George +M. Forbes: <q>Matter exists in subordinate dependence upon God; spirit in coördinate +dependence upon God. The body of Christ was Christ externalized, made manifest +to sense-perception. In apprehending matter, I am apprehending the mind and will of +God. This is the highest sort of reality. Neither matter nor finite spirits, then, are +mere phenomena.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. It assigns no sufficient cause for that fact of the universe which is +highest in rank, and therefore most needs explanation, namely, the existence +of personal intelligences. A substance which is itself unconscious, and +under the law of necessity, cannot produce beings who are self-conscious +and free. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Gess, Foundations of our Faith, 36—<q>Animal instinct, and the spirit of a nation working +out its language, might furnish analogies, if they produced personalities as their +result, but not otherwise. Nor were these tendencies self-originated, but received from +an external source.</q> McCosh, Intuitions, 215, 393, and Christianity and Positivism, 180. +Seth, Freedom as an Ethical Postulate, 47—<q>If man is an <q>imperium in imperio,</q> not a +person, but only an aspect or expression of the universe or God, then he cannot be +free. Man may be depersonalized either into nature or into God. Through the conception +of our own personality we reach that of God. To resolve our personality +<pb n='103'/><anchor id='Pg103'/> +into that of God would be to negate the divine greatness itself by invalidating the conception +through which it was reached.</q> Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 551, is more +ambiguous: <q>The positive relation of every appearance as an adjective to Reality; +and the presence of Reality among its appearances in different degrees and with diverse +values; this double truth we have found to be the centre of philosophy.</q> He protests +against both <q>an empty transcendence</q> and <q>a shallow pantheism.</q> Hegelian immanence +and knowledge, he asserts, identified God and man. But God is more than man +or man's thought. He is spirit and life—best understood from the human <emph>self</emph>, with its +thoughts, feelings, volitions. Immanence needs to be qualified by transcendence. +<q>God is not God till he has become all-in-all, and a God which is all-in-all is not the God +of religion. God is an aspect, and that must mean but an appearance of the Absolute.</q> +Bradley's Absolute, therefore, is not so much personal as super-personal; to which we +reply with Jackson, James Martineau, 416—<q>Higher than personality is lower; beyond +it is regression from its height. From the equator we may travel northward, gaining +ever higher and higher latitudes; but, if ever the pole is reached, pressing on from +thence will be descending into lower latitudes, not gaining higher.... Do I say, I am +a pantheist? Then, <hi rend='italic'>ipso facto</hi>, I deny pantheism; for, in the very assertion of the Ego, +I imply all else as objective to me.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. It therefore contradicts the affirmations of our moral and religious +natures by denying man's freedom and responsibility; by making God to +include in himself all evil as well as all good; and by precluding all prayer, +worship, and hope of immortality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Conscience is the eternal witness against pantheism. Conscience witnesses to our +freedom and responsibility, and declares that moral distinctions are not illusory. +Renouf, Hibbert Lect., 234—<q>It is only out of condescension to popular language that +pantheistic systems can recognize the notions of right and wrong, of iniquity and sin. +If everything really emanates from God, there can be no such thing as sin. And the +ablest philosophers who have been led to pantheistic views have vainly endeavored +to harmonize these views with what we understand by the notion of sin or moral evil. +The great systematic work of Spinoza is entitled 'Ethica'; but for real ethics we might +as profitably consult the Elements of Euclid.</q> Hodge, System. Theology, 1:299-330—<q>Pantheism +is fatalistic. On this theory, duty = pleasure; right = might; sin = good +in the making. Satan, as well as Gabriel, is a self-development of God. The practical +effects of pantheism upon popular morals and life, wherever it has prevailed, as in +Buddhist India and China, demonstrate its falsehood.</q> See also Dove, Logic of the +Christian Faith, 118; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 202; Bib. Sac., Oct. 1867:603-615; +Dix, Pantheism, Introd., 12. On the fact of sin as refuting the pantheistic theory, +see Bushnell, Nature and the Supernat., 140-164. +</p> + +<p> +Wordsworth: <q>Look up to heaven! the industrious sun Already half his course hath +run; He cannot halt or go astray; But our immortal spirits may.</q> President John H. +Harris; <q>You never ask a cyclone's opinion of the ten commandments.</q> Bowne, +Philos. of Theism, 245—<q>Pantheism makes man an automaton. But how can an +automaton have duties?</q> Principles of Ethics, 18—<q>Ethics is defined as the science +of conduct, and the conventions of language are relied upon to cover up the fact +that there is no <q>conduct</q> in the case. If man be a proper automaton, we might as well +speak of the conduct of the winds as of human conduct; and a treatise on planetary +motions is as truly the ethics of the solar system as a treatise on human movements is +the ethics of man.</q> For lack of a clear recognition of personality, either human or +divine, Hegel's Ethics is devoid of all spiritual nourishment,—his <q>Rechtsphilosophie</q> +has been called <q>a repast of bran.</q> Yet Professor Jones, in Mind, July, 1893:304, tells +us that Hegel's task was <q>to discover what conception of the single principle or fundamental +unity which alone <emph>is</emph>, is adequate to the differences which it carries within it. +<q><emph>Being</emph>,</q> he found, leaves no room for differences,—it is overpowered by them.... +He found that the Reality can exist only as absolute Self-consciousness, as a Spirit, +who is universal, and who knows himself in all things. In all this he is dealing, not +simply with thoughts, but with Reality.</q> Prof. Jones's vindication of Hegel, however, +still leaves it undecided whether that philosopher regarded the divine self-consciousness +as distinct from that of finite beings, or as simply inclusive of theirs. See John Caird, +Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:109. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='104'/><anchor id='Pg104'/> + +<p> +5. Our intuitive conviction of the existence of a God of absolute perfection +compels us to conceive of God as possessed of every highest quality +and attribute of men, and therefore, especially, of that which constitutes +the chief dignity of the human spirit, its personality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Diman, Theistic Argument, 328—<q>We have no right to represent the supreme Cause +as inferior to ourselves, yet we do this when we describe it under phrases derived from +physical causation.</q> Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 351—<q>We cannot conceive of anything +as impersonal, yet of higher nature than our own,—any being that has not +knowledge and will must be indefinitely inferior to one who has them.</q> Lotze holds +truly, not that God is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>supra</foreign>-personal, but that man is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>infra</foreign>-personal, seeing that in the +infinite Being alone is self-subsistence, and therefore perfect personality. Knight, +Essays in Philosophy, 224—<q>The radical feature of personality is the survival of a +permanent self, under all the fleeting or deciduous phases of experience; in other +words, the personal identity that is involved in the assertion <q>I am.</q>... Is limitation a +necessary adjunct of that notion?</q> Seth, Hegelianism: <q>As in us there is more <emph>for +ourselves</emph> than <emph>for others</emph>, so in God there is more of thought <emph>for himself</emph> than he manifests +<emph>to us</emph>. Hegel's doctrine is that of immanence without transcendence.</q> Heinrich +Heine was a pupil and intimate friend of Hegel. He says: <q>I was young and proud, +and it pleased my vain-glory when I learned from Hegel that the true God was not, as +my grandmother believed, the God who lived in heaven, but was rather <emph>myself upon +the earth</emph>.</q> John Fiske, Idea of God, xvi—<q>Since our notion of force is purely a +generalization from our subjective sensations of overcoming resistance, there is scarcely +less anthropomorphism in the phrase <q>Infinite Power</q> than in the phrase <q>Infinite +Person.</q> We must symbolize Deity in some form that has meaning to us; we cannot +symbolize it as physical; we are bound to symbolize it as psychical. Hence we may +say, God is Spirit. This implies God's personality.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +6. Its objection to the divine personality, that over against the Infinite +there can be in eternity past no non-ego to call forth self-consciousness, is +refuted by considering that even man's cognition of the non-ego logically +presupposes knowledge of the ego, from which the non-ego is distinguished; +that, in an absolute mind, self-consciousness cannot be conditioned, as in +the case of finite mind, upon contact with a not-self; and that, if the distinguishing +of self from a not-self were an essential condition of divine +self-consciousness, the eternal personal distinctions in the divine nature or +the eternal states of the divine mind might furnish such a condition. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:163, 190 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>—<q>Personal self-consciousness is not primarily +a distinguishing of the ego from the non-ego, but rather a distinguishing of itself from +itself, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, of the unity of the self from the plurality of its contents.... Before +the soul distinguishes self from the not-self, it must know self—else it could not see +the distinction. Its development is connected with the knowledge of the non-ego, but +this is due, not to the fact of <emph>personality</emph>, but to the fact of <emph>finite</emph> personality. The +mature man can live for a long time upon his own resources. God needs no other, to +stir him up to mental activity. Finiteness is a hindrance to the development of our +personality. Infiniteness is necessary to the highest personality.</q> Lotze, Microcosmos, +vol. 3, chapter 4; transl. in N. Eng., March, 1881:191-200—<q>Finite spirit, not +having conditions of existence in itself, can know the ego only upon occasion of knowing +the non-ego. The Infinite is not so limited. He alone has an independent existence, +neither introduced nor developed through anything not himself, but, in an inward +activity without beginning or end, maintains himself in himself.</q> See also Lotze, +Philos. of Religion, 55-69; H. N. Gardiner on Lotze, in Presb. Rev., 1885:669-673; Webb, +in Jour. Theol. Studies, 2:49-61. +</p> + +<p> +Dorner, Glaubenslehre: <q>Absolute Personality = perfect consciousness of self, and +perfect power over self. We need something external to waken our consciousness—yet +self-consciousness comes [logically] before consciousness of the world. It is the soul's +act. Only after it has distinguished self from self, can it consciously distinguish self +from another.</q> British Quarterly, Jan. 1874:32, note; July, 1884:108—<q>The ego is +<emph>thinkable</emph> only in relation to the non-ego; but the ego is <emph>liveable</emph> long before any such +<pb n='105'/><anchor id='Pg105'/> +relation.</q> Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:185, 186—In the pantheistic scheme, <q>God distinguishes +himself from the <emph>world</emph>, and thereby finds the object required by the subject; +... in the Christian scheme, God distinguishes himself from <emph>himself</emph>, not from something +that is not himself.</q> See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:122-126; Christlieb, Mod. +Doubt and Christ. Belief, 161-190; Hanne, Idee der absoluten Persönlichkeit; Eichhorn, +Die Persönlichkeit Gottes; Seth, Hegelianism and Personality; Knight, on Personality +and the Infinite, in Studies in Philos. and Lit., 70-118. +</p> + +<p> +On the whole subject of Pantheism, see Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:141-194, +esp. 192—<q>The <emph>personality</emph> of God consists in his voluntary agency as free cause in an +unpledged sphere, that is, a sphere transcending that of immanent law. But precisely +this also it is that constitutes his <emph>infinity</emph>, extending his sway, after it has filled the +actual, over all the possible, and giving command over indefinite alternatives. Though +you might deny his infinity without prejudice to his personality, you cannot deny his +personality without sacrificing his infinitude: for there is a mode of action—the <emph>preferential</emph>, +the very mode which distinguishes rational beings—from which you exclude +him</q>; 341—<q>The metaphysicians who, in their impatience of distinction, insist on +taking the sea on board the boat, swamp not only it but the thought it holds, and leave +an infinitude which, as it can look into no eye and whisper into no ear, they contradict +in the very act of affirming.</q> Jean Paul Richter's <q>Dream</q>: <q>I wandered to the +farthest verge of Creation, and there I saw a <emph>Socket</emph>, where an <emph>Eye</emph> should have been, +and I heard the shriek of a Fatherless World</q> (quoted in David Brown's Memoir of +John Duncan, 49-70). Shelley, Beatrice Cenci: <q>Sweet Heaven, forgive weak +thoughts! If there should be No God, no Heaven, no Earth, in the void world—The +wide, grey, lampless, deep, unpeopled world!</q> +</p> + +<p> +For the opposite view, see Biedermann, Dogmatik, 638-647—<q>Only man, as finite +spirit, is personal; God, as absolute spirit, is not personal. Yet in religion the mutual +relations of intercourse and communion are always personal.... Personality is the only +adequate term by which we can represent the theistic conception of God.</q> Bruce, Providential +Order, 76—<q>Schopenhauer does not level up cosmic force to the human, but +levels down human will-force to the cosmic. Spinoza held intellect in God to be no +more like man's than the dog-star is like a dog. Hartmann added intellect to Schopenhauer's +will, but the intellect is unconscious and knows no moral distinctions.</q> See also +Bruce, Apologetics, 71-90; Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 128-134, 171-186; J. M. Whiton, +Am. Jour. Theol., Apl. 1901:306—Pantheism = God consists in all things; Theism = All +things consist in God, their ground, not their sum. Spirit in man shows that the +infinite Spirit must be personal and transcendent Mind and Will. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Ethical Monism.</head> + +<p> +Ethical Monism is that method of thought which holds to a single substance, +ground, or principle of being, namely, God, but which also holds +to the ethical facts of God's transcendence as well as his immanence, and +of God's personality as distinct from, and as guaranteeing, the personality +of man. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Although we do not here assume the authority of the Bible, reserving our proof of +this to the next following division on The Scriptures a Revelation from God, we may +yet cite passages which show that our doctrine is not inconsistent with the teachings +of holy Writ. The immanence of God is implied in all statements of his omnipresence, +as for example: <emph>Ps. 139:7 sq.—<q>Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?</q></emph> +<emph>Jer. 23:23, 24—<q>Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off?... Do not I fill heaven +and earth?</q></emph> <emph>Acts 17:27, 28—<q>he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our +being.</q></emph> The transcendence of God is implied in such passages as: <emph>1 Kings 8:27—<q>the heaven +and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 113:5—<q>that hath his seat on high</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 57:15—<q>the high +and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +This is the faith of Augustine: <q>O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our +heart is restless till it find rest in thee.... I could not be, O my God, could not be +at all, wert thou not in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom +are all things, in whom are all things.</q> And Anselm, in his Proslogion, says of the +divine nature: <q>It is the essence of the being, the principle of the existence, of all +things.... Without parts, without differences, without accidents, without changes, +it might be said in a certain sense alone to exist, for in respect to it the other things +<pb n='106'/><anchor id='Pg106'/> +which appear to be have no existence. The unchangeable Spirit is all that is, and it is this +without limit, simply, interminably. It is the perfect and absolute Existence. The +rest has come from non-entity, and thither returns if not supported by God. It does +not exist by itself. In this sense the Creator alone exists; created things do not.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +1. While Ethical Monism embraces the one element of truth contained +in Pantheism—the truth that God is in all things and that all things are in +God—it regards this scientific unity as entirely consistent with the facts of +ethics—man's freedom, responsibility, sin, and guilt; in other words, +Metaphysical Monism, or the doctrine of one substance, ground, or principle +of being, is qualified by Psychological Dualism, or the doctrine that +the soul is personally distinct from matter on the one hand, and from God +on the other. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ethical Monism is a monism which holds to the ethical facts of the freedom of man +and the transcendence and personality of God; it is the monism of free-will, in which personality, +both human and divine, sin and righteousness, God and the world, remain—two +in one, and one in two—in their moral antithesis as well as their natural unity. +Ladd, Introd. to Philosophy: <q>Dualism is yielding, in history and in the judgment-halls +of reason, to a monistic philosophy.... Some form of philosophical monism +is indicated by the researches of psycho-physics, and by that philosophy of mind which +builds upon the principles ascertained by these researches. Realities correlated as are +the body and the mind must have, as it were, a common ground.... They have +their reality in the ultimate one Reality; they have their interrelated lives as expressions +of the one Life which is immanent in the two.... Only some form of monism +that shall satisfy the facts and truths to which both realism and idealism appeal can +occupy the place of the true and final philosophy.... Monism must so construct its +tenets as to preserve, or at least as not to contradict and destroy, the truths implicated +in the distinction between the <emph>me</emph> and the <emph>not-me</emph>, ... between the morally good +and the morally evil. No form of monism can persistently maintain itself which erects +its system upon the ruins of fundamentally ethical principles and ideals.</q>... Philosophy +of Mind, 411—<q>Dualism must be dissolved in some ultimate monistic solution. +The Being of the world, of which all particular beings are but parts, must be so conceived +of as that in it can be found the one ground of all interrelated existences and +activities.... This one Principle is an Other and an Absolute Mind.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, II, 3:101, 231—<q>The unity of essence in God and +man is the great discovery of the present age.... The characteristic feature of all +recent Christologies is the endeavor to point out the essential unity of the divine and +human. To the theology of the present day, the divine and human are not mutually +exclusive, but are connected magnitudes.... Yet faith postulates a difference between +the world and God, between whom religion seeks an union. Faith does not wish +to be a relation merely to itself, or to its own representations and thoughts; that +would be a monologue,—faith desires a dialogue. Therefore it does not consort with a +monism which recognizes only God, or only the world; it opposes such a monism as +this. Duality is, in fact, a condition of true and vital unity. But duality is not dualism. +It has no desire to oppose the rational demand for unity.</q> Professor Small of +Chicago: <q>With rare exceptions on each side, all philosophy to-day is monistic in its +ontological presumptions; it is dualistic in its methodological procedures.</q> A. H. +Bradford, Age of Faith, 71—<q>Men and God are the same in substance, though not +identical as individuals.</q> The theology of fifty years ago was merely individualistic, +and ignored the complementary truth of solidarity. Similarly we think of the continents +and islands of our globe as disjoined from one another. The dissociable sea is +regarded as an absolute barrier between them. But if the ocean could be dried, we +should see that all the while there had been submarine connections, and the hidden +unity of all lands would appear. So the individuality of human beings, real as it is, is +not the only reality. There is the profounder fact of a common life. Even the great +mountain-peaks of personality are superficial distinctions, compared with the organic +oneness in which they are rooted, into which they all dip down, and from which they +all, like volcanoes, receive at times quick and overflowing impulses of insight, emotion +and energy; see A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism, 189, 190. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='107'/><anchor id='Pg107'/> + +<p> +2. In contrast then with the two errors of Pantheism—the denial of +God's transcendence and the denial of God's personality—Ethical Monism +holds that the universe, instead of being one with God and conterminous +with God, is but a finite, partial and progressive manifestation of the divine +Life: Matter being God's self-limitation under the law of Necessity; +Humanity being God's self-limitation under the law of Freedom; Incarnation +and Atonement being God's self-limitations under the law of Grace. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The universe is related to God as my thoughts are related to me, the thinker. I am +greater than my thoughts, and my thoughts vary in moral value. Ethical Monism traces +the universe back to a beginning, while Pantheism regards the universe as coëternal +with God. Ethical Monism asserts God's transcendence, while Pantheism regards +God as imprisoned in the universe. Ethical Monism asserts that the heaven of heavens +cannot contain him, but that contrariwise the whole universe taken together, with its +elements and forces, its suns and systems, is but a light breath from his mouth, or a +drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. Upton, Hibbert Lectures: <q>The Eternal +is present in every finite thing, and is felt and known to be present in every rational +soul; but still is not broken up into individualities, but ever remains one and the +same eternal substance, one and the same unifying principle, immanently and indivisibly +present in every one of that countless plurality of finite individuals into which +man's analyzing understanding dissects the Cosmos.</q> James Martineau, in 19th Century, +Apl. 1895:559—<q>What is Nature but the province of God's pledged and habitual +causality? And what is Spirit, but the province of his free causality, responding to the +needs and affections of his children?... God is not a retired architect, who may now +and then be called in for repairs. Nature is not self-active, and God's agency is +not intrusive.</q> Calvin: Pie hoc potest dici, Deum esse Naturam. +</p> + +<p> +With this doctrine many poets show their sympathy. <q>Every fresh and new creation, +A divine improvisation, From the heart of God proceeds.</q> Robert Browning +asserts God's immanence; Hohenstiel-Schwangau: <q>This is the glory that, in all conceived +Or felt, or known, I recognize a Mind—Not mine, but like mine—for the double +joy, Making all things for me, and me for him</q>; Ring and Book, Pope: <q>O thou, as +represented to me here In such conception as my soul allows—Under thy measureless, +my atom-width! Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass, Wherein are gathered all +the scattered points Picked out of the immensity of sky, To reunite there, be our heaven +for earth, Our Known Unknown, our God revealed to man?</q> But Browning also asserts +God's transcendence: in Death in the Desert, we read: <q>Man is not God, but hath +God's end to serve, A Master to obey, a Cause to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat +to become</q>; in Christmas Eve, the poet derides <q>The important stumble Of adding, +he, the sage and humble, Was also one with the Creator</q>; he tells us that it was God's +plan to make man in his image: <q>To create man, and then leave him Able, his own +word saith, to grieve him; But able to glorify him too, As a mere machine could never +do That prayed or praised, all unaware Of its fitness for aught but praise or prayer, +Made perfect as a thing of course.... God, whose pleasure brought Man into being, +stands away, As it were, a hand-breadth off, to give Room for the newly made to live +And look at him from a place apart And use his gifts of brain and heart</q>; <q>Life's +business being just the terrible choice.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So Tennyson's Higher Pantheism: <q>The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, +and the plains, Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns? Dark is the world to +thee; thou thyself art the reason why; For is not He all but thou, that hast power +to feel <q>I am I</q>? Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; +Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. And the ear of man cannot +hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this vision—were +it not He?</q> Also Tennyson's Ancient Sage: <q>But that one ripple on the boundless +deep Feels that the deep is boundless, and itself Forever changing form, but evermore +One with the boundless motion of the deep</q>; and In Memoriam: <q>One God, one +law, one element, And one far-off divine event, Toward which the whole creation +moves.</q> Emerson: <q>The day of days, the greatest day in the feast of life, is that in +which the inward eye opens to the unity of things</q>; <q>In the mud and scum of things +Something always, always sings.</q> Mrs. Browning: <q>Earth is crammed with heaven, +And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes.</q> So +manhood is itself potentially a divine thing. All life, in all its vast variety, can have +<pb n='108'/><anchor id='Pg108'/> +but one Source. It is either one God, above all, through all, and in all, or it is no God +at all. E. M. Poteat, On Chesapeake Bay: <q>Night's radiant glory overhead, A softer +glory there below, Deep answered unto deep, and said: A kindred fire in us doth glow. +For life is one—of sea and stars, Of God and man, of earth and heaven—And by no +theologic bars Shall my scant life from God's be riven.</q> See Professor Henry Jones, +Robert Browning. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. The immanence of God, as the one substance, ground and principle +of being, does not destroy, but rather guarantees, the individuality and +rights of each portion of the universe, so that there is variety of rank and +endowment. In the case of moral beings, worth is determined by the +degree of their voluntary recognition and appropriation of the divine. +While God is all, he is also in all; so making the universe a graded and progressive +manifestation of himself, both in his love for righteousness and +his opposition to moral evil. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It has been charged that the doctrine of monism necessarily involves moral indifference; +that the divine presence in all things breaks down all distinctions of rank and +makes each thing equal to every other; that the evil as well as the good is legitimated +and consecrated. Of pantheistic monism all this is true,—it is not true of ethical +monism; for ethical monism is the monism that recognizes the ethical fact of personal +intelligence and will in both God and man, and with these God's purpose in making the +universe a varied manifestation of himself. The worship of cats and bulls and crocodiles +in ancient Egypt, and the deification of lust in the Brahmanic temples of India, +were expressions of a non-ethical monism, which saw in God no moral attributes, and +which identified God with his manifestations. As an illustration of the mistakes into +which the critics of monism may fall for lack of discrimination between monism that +is pantheistic and monism that is ethical, we quote from Emma Marie Caillard: <q>Integral +parts of God are, on monistic premises, liars, sensualists, murderers, evil livers +and evil thinkers of every description. Their crimes and their passions enter intrinsically +into the divine experience. The infinite Individual in his wholeness may reject +them indeed, but none the less are these evil finite individuals constituent parts of him, +even as the twigs of a tree, though they are not the tree, and though the tree transcends +any or all of them, are yet constituent parts of it. Can he whose universal consciousness +includes and defines all finite consciousnesses be other than responsible for all +finite actions and motives?</q> +</p> + +<p> +To this indictment we may reply in the words of Bowne, The Divine Immanence, +130-133—<q rend='pre'>Some weak heads have been so heated by the new wine of immanence +as to put all things on the same level, and make men and mice of equal value. But +there is nothing in the dependence of all things on God to remove their distinctions +of value. One confused talker of this type was led to say that he had no trouble with +the notion of a divine man, as he believed in a divine oyster. Others have used the +doctrine to cancel moral differences; for if God be in all things, and if all things represent +his will, then whatever is is right. But this too is hasty. Of course even the evil will +is not independent of God, but lives and moves and has its being in and through the +divine. But through its mysterious power of selfhood and self-determination the evil +will is able to assume an attitude of hostility to the divine law, which forthwith +vindicates itself by appropriate reactions.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>These reactions are not divine in the highest or ideal sense. They represent nothing +which God desires or in which he delights; but they are divine in the sense that they +are things to be done under the circumstances. The divine reaction in the case of the +good is distinct from the divine reaction against evil. Both are divine as representing +God's action, but only the former is divine in the sense of representing God's approval +and sympathy. All things serve, said Spinoza. The good serve, and are furthered by +their service. The bad also serve and are used up in the serving. According to +Jonathan Edwards, the wicked are useful <q>in being acted upon and disposed of.</q> As +<q>vessels of dishonor</q> they may reveal the majesty of God. There is nothing therefore +in the divine immanence, in its only tenable form, to cancel moral distinctions or to +minify retribution. The divine reaction against iniquity is even more solemn in this +doctrine. The besetting God is the eternal and unescapable environment; and only as +we are in harmony with him can there be any peace.... What God thinks of sin, +<pb n='109'/><anchor id='Pg109'/> +and what his will is concerning it can be plainly seen in the natural consequences which +attend it.... In law itself we are face to face with God; and natural consequences +have a supernatural meaning.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. Since Christ is the Logos of God, the immanent God, God revealed +in Nature, in Humanity, in Redemption, Ethical Monism recognizes the +universe as created, upheld, and governed by the same Being who in the +course of history was manifest in human form and who made atonement +for human sin by his death on Calvary. The secret of the universe and +the key to its mysteries are to be found in the Cross. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 1:1-4 (marg.), 14, 18—<q>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word +was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not +any thing made. That which hath been made was life in him; and the life was the light of men.... And the +Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.... No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who +is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.</q></emph> <emph>Col. 1:16, 17—<q>for in him were all things created, in the +heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or +powers; all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things +consist.</q></emph> <emph>Heb. 1:2, 3—<q>his Son ... through whom also he made the worlds ... upholding all things by the +word of his power</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:22, 23—<q>the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all</q></emph> = fills +all things with all that they contain of truth, beauty, and goodness; <emph>Col. 2:2, 3, 9—<q>the +mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden ... for in him dwelleth +all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +This view of the relation of the universe to God lays the foundation for a Christian +application of recent philosophical doctrine. Matter is no longer blind and dead, but is +spiritual in its nature, not in the sense that it <emph>is</emph> spirit, but in the sense that it is the +continual <emph>manifestation</emph> of spirit, just as my thoughts are a living and continual manifestation +of myself. Yet matter does not consist simply in <emph>ideas</emph>, for ideas, deprived of +an external object and of an internal subject, are left suspended in the air. Ideas are the +product of Mind. But matter is known only as the operation of force, and force is the +product of Will. Since this force works in rational ways, it can be the product only of +Spirit. The system of forces which we call the universe is the immediate product of +the mind and will of God; and, since Christ is the mind and will of God in exercise, +Christ is the Creator and Upholder of the universe. Nature is the omnipresent Christ, +manifesting God to creatures. +</p> + +<p> +Christ is the principle of cohesion, attraction, interaction, not only in the physical +universe, but in the intellectual and moral universe as well. In all our knowing, +the knower and known are <q>connected by some Being who is their reality,</q> and +this being is Christ, <emph><q>the Light which lighteth every man</q> (John 1:9)</emph>. We <emph>know</emph> in Christ, +just as <emph><q>in him we live, and move, and have our being</q> (Acts 17:28)</emph>. As the attraction of +gravitation and the principle of evolution are only other names for Christ, so he is +the basis of inductive reasoning and the ground of moral unity in the creation. I am +bound to love my neighbor as myself because he has in him the same life that is in me, +the life of God in Christ. The Christ in whom all humanity is created, and in whom all +humanity consists, holds together the moral universe, drawing all men to himself and +so drawing them to God. Through him God <emph><q>reconciles all things unto himself ... whether +things upon the earth, or things in the heavens</q> (Col. 1:20)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +As Pantheism = exclusive immanence = God imprisoned, so Deism = exclusive transcendence += God banished. Ethical Monism holds to the truth contained in each of +these systems, while avoiding their respective errors. It furnishes the basis for a new +interpretation of many theological as well as of many philosophical doctrines. It helps +our understanding of the Trinity. If within the bounds of God's being there can exist +multitudinous finite personalities, it becomes easier to comprehend how within those +same bounds there can be three eternal and infinite personalities,—indeed, the integration +of plural consciousnesses in an all-embracing divine consciousness may find a valid +analogy in the integration of subordinate consciousnesses in the unit-personality of +man; see Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Feeling and Will, 53, 54. +</p> + +<p> +Ethical Monism, since it is ethical, leaves room for human wills and for their freedom. +While man could never break the natural bond which united him to God, he +could break the spiritual bond and introduce into creation a principle of discord and +evil. Tie a cord tightly about your finger; you partially isolate the finger, diminish +its nutrition, bring about atrophy and disease. So there has been given to each intelligent +<pb n='110'/><anchor id='Pg110'/> +and moral agent the power, spiritually to isolate himself from God while yet he +is naturally joined to God. As humanity is created in Christ and lives only in Christ, +man's self-isolation is his moral separation from Christ. Simon, Redemption of Man, +339—<q>Rejecting Christ is not so much refusal to <emph>become</emph> one with Christ as it is refusal +to <emph>remain</emph> one with him, refusal to let him be our life.</q> All men are naturally one +with Christ by physical birth, before they become morally one with him by spiritual +birth. They may set themselves against him and may oppose him forever. This our +Lord intimates, when he tells us that there are natural branches of Christ, which do not +<emph><q>abide in the vine</q></emph> or <emph><q>bear fruit,</q></emph> and so are <emph><q>cast forth,</q></emph> <emph><q>withered,</q></emph> and <emph><q>burned</q> (John 15:4-6)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Ethical Monism, however, since it is Monism, enables us to understand the principle +of the Atonement. Though God's holiness binds him to punish sin, the Christ who has +joined himself to the sinner must share the sinner's punishment. He who is the life of +humanity must take upon his own heart the burden of shame and penalty that belongs +to his members. Tie the cord about your finger; not only the finger suffers pain, but +also the heart; the life of the whole system rouses itself to put away the evil, to untie +the cord, to free the diseased and suffering member. Humanity is bound to Christ, as +the finger to the body. Since human nature is one of the <emph><q>all things</q></emph> that <emph><q>consist</q></emph> or +hold together in Christ (<emph>Col 1:17</emph>), and man's sin is a self-perversion of a part of Christ's +own body, the whole must be injured by the self-inflicted injury of the part, and <emph><q>it +must needs be that Christ should suffer</q> (Acts 17:3)</emph>. Simon, Redemption of Man, 321—<q>If the +Logos is the Mediator of the divine immanence in creation, especially in man; if men +are differentiations of the effluent divine energy; and if the Logos is the immanent +controlling principle of all differentiation—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, the principle of all <emph>form</emph>—must not +the self-perversion of these human differentiations react on him who is their constitutive +principle?</q> A more full explanation of the relations of Ethical Monism to other +doctrines must be reserved to our separate treatment of the Trinity, Creation, Sin, +Atonement, Regeneration. Portions of the subject are treated by Upton, Hibbert +Lectures; Le Conte, in Royce's Conception of God, 43-50; Bowne, Theory of Thought +and Knowledge, 297-301, 311-317, and Immanence of God, 5-32, 116-153; Ladd, Philos. of +Knowledge, 574-590, and Theory of Reality, 525-529; Edward Caird, Evolution of +Religion, 2:48; Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 2:258-283; Göschel, quoted in +Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, 5:170. An attempt has been made to treat the +whole subject by A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism, 1-86, 141-162, +166-180, 186-208. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='111'/><anchor id='Pg111'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Part III. The Scriptures A Revelation From God.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter I. Preliminary Considerations.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Reasons <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> for expecting a Revelation from God.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Needs of man's nature.</hi> Man's intellectual and moral nature requires, +in order to preserve it from constant deterioration, and to ensure its moral +growth and progress, an authoritative and helpful revelation of religious +truth, of a higher and completer sort than any to which, in its present state +of sin, it can attain by the use of its unaided powers. The proof of this +proposition is partly psychological, and partly historical. +</p> + +<p> +A. Psychological proof.—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Neither reason nor intuition throws light +upon certain questions whose solution is of the utmost importance to us; for +example, Trinity, atonement, pardon, method of worship, personal existence +after death. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Even the truth to which we arrive by our natural powers +needs divine confirmation and authority when it addresses minds and wills +perverted by sin. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) To break this power of sin, and to furnish encouragement +to moral effort, we need a special revelation of the merciful and helpful +aspect of the divine nature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Bremen Lectures, 72, 73; Plato, Second Alcibiades, 22, 23; Phædo, 85—λόγου θείου +τινός. Iamblicus, περὶ τοῦ Πυθαγορικοῦ βίου, chap. 28. Æschylus, in his Agamemnon, +shows how completely reason and intuition failed to supply the knowledge of God +which man needs: <q>Renown is loud,</q> he says, <q>and not to lose one's senses is God's +greatest gift.... The being praised outrageously Is grave; for at the eyes of such +a one Is launched, from Zeus, the thunder-stone. Therefore do I decide For so much +and no more prosperity Than of his envy passes unespied.</q> Though the gods might +have favorites, they did not love men as men, but rather, envied and hated them. +William James, Is Life Worth Living? in Internat. Jour. Ethics, Oct. 1895:10—<q>All +we know of good and beauty proceeds from nature, but none the less all we know of +evil.... To such a harlot we owe no moral allegiance.... If there be a divine +Spirit of the universe, nature, such as we know her, cannot possibly be its ultimate +word to man. Either there is no Spirit revealed in nature, or else it is inadequately +revealed there; and, as all the higher religions have assumed, what we call visible +nature, or <emph>this</emph> world, must be but a veil and surface-show whose full meaning resides +in a supplementary unseen or <emph>other</emph> world.</q> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Socrates: Men will do right, if they only know the right. Pfleiderer, +Philos. Relig., 1:219—<q>In opposition to the opinion of Socrates that badness rests upon +ignorance, Aristotle already called the fact to mind that the doing of the good is not +always combined with the knowing of it, seeing that it depends also on the passions. +If badness consisted only in the want of knowledge, then those who are theoretically +<pb n='112'/><anchor id='Pg112'/> +most cultivated must also be morally the best, which no one will venture to assert.</q> +W. S. Lilly, On Shibboleths: <q>Ignorance is often held to be the root of all evil. But +mere knowledge cannot transform character. It cannot minister to a mind diseased. +It cannot convert the will from bad to good. It may turn crime into different channels, +and render it less easy to detect. It does not change man's natural propensities or his +disposition to gratify them at the expense of others. Knowledge makes the good man +more powerful for good, the bad man more powerful for evil. And that is all it can +do.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 174—<q>We must not depreciate the method of argument, for +Jesus and Paul occasionally used it in a Socratic fashion, but we must recognize that +it is not the basis of the Christian system nor the primary method of Christianity.</q> +Martineau, in Nineteenth Century, 1:331, 531, and Types, 1:112—<q>Plato dissolved the +idea of the right into that of the good, and this again was indistinguishably mingled +with that of the true and the beautiful.</q> See also Flint, Theism, 305. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Thomas Paine: <q>Natural religion teaches us, without the possibility of +being mistaken, all that is necessary or proper to be known.</q> Plato, Laws, 9:854, <hi rend='italic'>c</hi>, +for substance: <q>Be good; but, if you cannot, then kill yourself.</q> Farrar, Darkness +and Dawn, 75—<q>Plato says that man will never know God until God has revealed himself +in the guise of suffering man, and that, when all is on the verge of destruction, +God sees the distress of the universe, and, placing himself at the rudder, restores it to +order.</q> Prometheus, the type of humanity, can never be delivered <q>until some god +descends for him into the black depths of Tartarus.</q> Seneca in like manner teaches +that man cannot save himself. He says: <q>Do you wonder that men go to the gods? +God comes <emph>to</emph> men, yes, <emph>into</emph> men.</q> We are sinful, and God's thoughts are not as our +thoughts, nor his ways as our ways. Therefore he must make known his thoughts to +us, teach us what we are, what true love is, and what will please him. Shaler, Interpretation +of Nature, 227—<q>The inculcation of moral truths can be successfully effected +only in the personal way; ... it demands the influence of personality; ... the weight +of the impression depends upon the voice and the eye of a teacher.</q> In other words, +we need not only the exercise of authority, but also the manifestation of love. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Historical proof.—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The knowledge of moral and religious truth +possessed by nations and ages in which special revelation is unknown is +grossly and increasingly imperfect. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Man's actual condition in ante-Christian +times, and in modern heathen lands, is that of extreme moral +depravity. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) With this depravity is found a general conviction of helplessness, +and on the part of some nobler natures, a longing after, and hope +of, aid from above. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pythagoras: <q>It is not easy to know [duties], except men were taught them by God +himself, or by some person who had received them from God, or obtained the knowledge +of them through some divine means.</q> Socrates: <q>Wait with patience, till we know +with certainty how we ought to behave ourselves toward God and man.</q> Plato: <q>We +will wait for one, be he a God or an inspired man, to instruct us in our duties and to take +away the darkness from our eyes.</q> Disciple of Plato: <q>Make probability our raft, +while we sail through life, unless we could have a more sure and safe conveyance, such +as some divine communication would be.</q> Plato thanked God for three things: first, +that he was born a rational soul; secondly, that he was born a Greek; and, thirdly, +that he lived in the days of Socrates. Yet, with all these advantages, he had only probability +for a raft, on which to navigate strange seas of thought far beyond his depth, +and he longed for <emph><q>a more sure word of prophecy</q> (2 Pet. 1:19)</emph>. See references and quotations +in Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, 35, and in Luthardt, Fundamental +Truths, 156-172, 335-338; Farrar, Seekers after God; Garbett, Dogmatic Faith, 187. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Presumption of supply.</hi> What we know of God, by nature, affords +ground for hope that these wants of our intellectual and moral being will be +met by a corresponding supply, in the shape of a special divine revelation. +We argue this: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) From our necessary conviction of God's wisdom. Having made +man a spiritual being, for spiritual ends, it may be hoped that he will furnish +the means needed to secure these ends. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) From the actual, though incomplete, +<pb n='113'/><anchor id='Pg113'/> +revelation already given in nature. Since God has actually undertaken +to make himself known to men, we may hope that he will finish the +work he has begun. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) From the general connection of want and supply. +The higher our needs, the more intricate and ingenious are, in general, the +contrivances for meeting them. We may therefore hope that the highest +want will be all the more surely met. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) From analogies of nature and +history. Signs of reparative goodness in nature and of forbearance in providential +dealings lead us to hope that, while justice is executed, God may +still make known some way of restoration for sinners. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) There were two stages in Dr. John Duncan's escape from pantheism: 1. when he +came first to believe in the existence of God, and <q>danced for joy upon the brig o' +Dee</q>; and 2. when, under Malan's influence, he came also to believe that <q>God meant +that we should know him.</q> In the story in the old Village Reader, the mother broke +completely down when she found that her son was likely to grow up stupid, but her +tears conquered him and made him intelligent. Laura Bridgman was blind, deaf and +dumb, and had but small sense of taste or smell. When her mother, after long separation, +went to her in Boston, the mother's heart was in distress lest the daughter should +not recognize her. When at last, by some peculiar mother's sign, she pierced the veil +of insensibility, it was a glad time for both. So God, our Father, tries to reveal himself +to our blind, deaf and dumb souls. The agony of the Cross is the sign of God's distress +over the insensibility of humanity which sin has caused. If he is the Maker of man's +being, he will surely seek to fit it for that communion with himself for which it was +designed. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Gore, Incarnation, 52, 53—<q>Nature is a first volume, in itself incomplete, and +demanding a second volume, which is Christ.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) R. T. Smith, Man's Knowledge of +Man and of God, 228—<q>Mendicants do not ply their calling for years in a desert where +there are no givers. Enough of supply has been received to keep the sense of want +alive.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) In the natural arrangements for the healing of bruises in plants and for +the mending of broken bones in the animal creation, in the provision of remedial agents +for the cure of human diseases, and especially in the delay to inflict punishment upon +the transgressor and the space given him for repentance, we have some indications, +which, if uncontradicted by other evidence, might lead us to regard the God of nature +as a God of forbearance and mercy. Plutarch's treatise <q>De Sera Numinis Vindicta</q> is +proof that this thought had occurred to the heathen. It may be doubted, indeed, +whether a heathen religion could even continue to exist, without embracing in it some +element of hope. Yet this very delay in the execution of the divine judgments gave +its own occasion for doubting the existence of a God who was both good and just. +<q>Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,</q> is a scandal to the +divine government which only the sacrifice of Christ can fully remove. +</p> + +<p> +The problem presents itself also in the Old Testament. In Job 21, and in Psalms, 17, 37, 49, +73, there are partial answers; see <emph>Job 21:7—<q>Wherefore do the wicked live, Become old, yea, wax mighty +in power?</q></emph> <emph>24:1—<q>Why are not judgment times determined by the Almighty? And they that know him, why +see they not his days?</q></emph> The New Testament intimates the existence of a witness to God's +goodness among the heathen, while at the same time it declares that the full knowledge +of forgiveness and salvation is brought only by Christ. Compare <emph>Acts 14:17—<q>And yet he +left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your +hearts with food and gladness</q></emph>; <emph>17:25-27—<q>he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and he made +of one every nation of men ... that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. +2:4—<q>the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance</q></emph>; <emph>3:25—<q>the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in +the forbearance of God</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 3:9—<q>to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages +hath been hid in God</q></emph>; <emph>2 Tim. 1:10—<q>our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption +to light through the gospel.</q></emph> See Hackett's edition of the treatise of Plutarch, as also +Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 462-487; Diman, Theistic Argument, 371. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We conclude this section upon the reasons <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> for expecting a +revelation from God with the acknowledgment that the facts warrant that +degree of expectation which we call hope, rather than that larger degree +of expectation which we call assurance; and this, for the reason that, while +<pb n='114'/><anchor id='Pg114'/> +conscience gives proof that God is a God of holiness, we have not, from the +light of nature, equal evidence that God is a God of love. Reason teaches +man that, as a sinner, he merits condemnation; but he cannot, from reason +alone, know that God will have mercy upon him and provide salvation. +His doubts can be removed only by God's own voice, assuring him of +<q>redemption ... the forgiveness of ... trespasses</q> (Eph. 1:7) and +revealing to him the way in which that forgiveness has been rendered possible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Conscience knows no pardon, and no Savior. Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 9, +seems to us to go too far when he says: <q>Even natural affection and conscience afford +some clue to the goodness and holiness of God, though much more is needed by one +who undertakes the study of Christian theology.</q> We grant that natural affection +gives some clue to God's goodness, but we regard conscience as reflecting only God's +holiness and his hatred of sin. We agree with Alexander McLaren: <q>Does God's love +need to be proved? Yes, as all paganism shows. Gods vicious, gods careless, gods cruel, +gods beautiful, there are in abundance; but where is there a god who loves?</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Marks of the Revelation man may expect.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>As to its substance.</hi> We may expect this later revelation not to contradict, +but to confirm and enlarge, the knowledge of God which we derive +from nature, while it remedies the defects of natural religion and throws +light upon its problems. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Isaiah's appeal is to God's previous communications of truth: <emph>Is. 8:20—<q>To the law and to +the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.</q></emph> And Malachi +follows the example of Isaiah; <emph>Mal. 4:4—<q>Remember ye the law of Moses my servant.</q></emph> Our Lord +himself based his claims upon the former utterances of God: <emph>Luke 24:27—<q>beginning from +Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>As to its method.</hi> We may expect it to follow God's methods of +procedure in other communications of truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Bishop Butler (Analogy, part ii, chap. iii) has denied that there is any possibility of +judging <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> how a divine revelation will be given. <q>We are in no sort judges +beforehand,</q> he says, <q>by what methods, or in what proportion, it were to be expected +that this supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us.</q> But Bishop Butler +somewhat later in his great work (part ii, chap. iv) shows that God's progressive plan in +revelation has its analogy in the slow, successive steps by which God accomplishes his +ends in nature. We maintain that the revelation in nature affords certain presumptions +with regard to the revelation of grace, such for example as those mentioned below. +</p> + +<p> +Leslie Stephen, in Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1891:180—<q>Butler answered the argument +of the deists, that the God of Christianity was unjust, by arguing that the God of +nature was equally unjust. James Mill, admitting the analogy, refused to believe in +either God. Dr. Martineau has said, for similar reasons, that Butler <q>wrote one of the +most terrible persuasives to atheism ever produced.</q> So J. H. Newman's <q>kill or cure</q> +argument is essentially that God has either revealed nothing, or has made revelations in +some other places than in the Bible. His argument, like Butler's, may be as good a +persuasive to scepticism as to belief.</q> To this indictment by Leslie Stephen we reply +that it has cogency only so long as we ignore the fact of human sin. Granting this fact, +our world becomes a world of discipline, probation and redemption, and both the God +of nature and the God of Christianity are cleared from all suspicion of injustice. The +analogy between God's methods in the Christian system and his methods in nature +becomes an argument in favor of the former. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That of continuous historical development,—that it will be given +in germ to early ages, and will be more fully unfolded as the race is prepared +to receive it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instances of continuous development in God's impartations are found in geological +history; in the growth of the sciences; in the progressive education of the individual +<pb n='115'/><anchor id='Pg115'/> +and of the race. No other religion but Christianity shows <q>a steady historical progress +of the vision of one infinite Character unfolding itself to man through a period of +many centuries.</q> See sermon by Dr. Temple, on the Education of the World, in Essays +and Reviews; Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 374-384; Walker, Philosophy +of the Plan of Salvation. On the gradualness of revelation, see Fisher, Nature and +Method of Revelation, 46-86; Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown's Rab and his Friends, +282—<q>Revelation is a gradual approximation of the infinite Being to the ways and +thoughts of finite humanity.</q> A little fire can kindle a city or a world; but ten times +the heat of that little fire, if widely diffused, would not kindle anything. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That of original delivery to a single nation, and to single persons +in that nation, that it may through them be communicated to mankind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Each nation represents an idea. As the Greek had a genius for liberty and beauty, +and the Roman a genius for organization and law, so the Hebrew nation had a <q>genius +for religion</q> (Renan); this last, however, would have been useless without special +divine aid and superintendence, as witness other productions of this same Semitic race, +such as Bel and the Dragon, in the Old Testament Apocrypha; the gospels of the Apocryphal +New Testament; and later still, the Talmud and the Koran. +</p> + +<p> +The O. T. Apocrypha relates that, when Daniel was thrown a second time into the +lions' den, an angel seized Habakkuk in Judea by the hair of his head and carried him +with a bowl of pottage to give to Daniel for his dinner. There were seven lions, and +Daniel was among them seven days and nights. Tobias starts from his father's house +to secure his inheritance, and his little dog goes with him. On the banks of the great +river a great fish threatens to devour him, but he captures and despoils the fish. He +finally returns successful to his father's house, and his little dog goes in with him. In +the Apocryphal Gospels, Jesus carries water in his mantle when his pitcher is broken; +makes clay birds on the Sabbath, and, when rebuked, causes them to fly; strikes a +youthful companion with death, and then curses his accusers with blindness; mocks +his teachers, and resents control. Later Moslem legends declare that Mohammed +caused darkness at noon; whereupon the moon flew to him, went seven times around +the Kaāba, bowed, entered his right sleeve, split into two halves after slipping out at +the left, and the two halves, after retiring to the extreme east and west, were reunited. +These products of the Semitic race show that neither the influence of environment nor +a native genius for religion furnishes an adequate explanation of our Scriptures. As +the flame on Elijah's altar was caused, not by the dead sticks, but by the fire from heaven, +so only the inspiration of the Almighty can explain the unique revelation of the Old +and New Testaments. +</p> + +<p> +The Hebrews saw God in conscience. For the most genuine expression of their life +we <q>must look beneath the surface, in the soul, where worship and aspiration and +prophetic faith come face to face with God</q> (Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 28). +But the Hebrew religion needed to be supplemented by the sight of God in reason, and +in the beauty of the world. The Greeks had the love of knowledge, and the æsthetic +sense. Butcher, Aspects of the Greek Genius, 34—<q>The Phœnicians taught the Greeks +how to write, but it was the Greeks who wrote.</q> Aristotle was the beginner of science, +and outside the Aryan race none but the Saracens ever felt the scientific impulse. +But the Greek made his problem clear by striking all the unknown quantities out of it. +Greek thought would never have gained universal currency and permanence if it had +not been for Roman jurisprudence and imperialism. England has contributed her +constitutional government, and America her manhood suffrage and her religious freedom. +So a definite thought of God is incorporated in each nation, and each nation has +a message to every other. <emph>Acts 17:26</emph>—God <emph><q>made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the +earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 3:12—<q>What advantage +then hath the Jew?... first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.</q></emph> God's choice +of the Hebrew nation, as the repository and communicator of religious truth, is analogous +to his choice of other nations, as the repositories and communicators of æsthetic, +scientific, governmental truth. +</p> + +<p> +Hegel: <q>No nation that has played a weighty and active part in the world's history +has ever issued from the simple development of a single race along the unmodified +lines of blood-relationship. There must be differences, conflicts, a composition of +opposed forces.</q> The conscience of the Hebrew, the thought of the Greek, the organization +of the Latin, the personal loyalty of the Teuton, must all be united to form a +perfect whole. <q>While the Greek church was orthodox, the Latin church was Catholic; +<pb n='116'/><anchor id='Pg116'/> +while the Greek treated of the two wills in Christ, the Latin treated of the harmony +of our wills with God; while the Latin saved through a corporation, the Teuton +saved through personal faith.</q> Brereton, in Educational Review, Nov. 1901:339—<q>The +problem of France is that of the religious orders; that of Germany, the construction +of society; that of America, capital and labor.</q> Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:183, +184—<q>Great ideas never come from the masses, but from marked individuals. +These ideas, when propounded, however, awaken an echo in the masses, which shows +that the ideas had been slumbering unconsciously in the souls of others.</q> The hour +strikes, and a Newton appears, who interprets God's will in nature. So the hour +strikes, and a Moses or a Paul appears, who interprets God's will in morals and religion. +The few grains of wheat found in the clasped hand of the Egyptian mummy would +have been utterly lost if one grain had been sown in Europe, a second in Asia, a third +in Africa, and a fourth in America; all being planted together in a flower-pot, and +their product in a garden-bed, and the still later fruit in a farmer's field, there came at +last to be a sufficient crop of new Mediterranean wheat to distribute to all the world. +So God followed his ordinary method in giving religious truth first to a single nation +and to chosen individuals in that nation, that through them it might be given to all +mankind. See British Quarterly, Jan. 1874: art.: Inductive Theology. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That of preservation in written and accessible documents, handed +down from those to whom the revelation is first communicated. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Alphabets, writing, books, are our chief dependence for the history of the past; all +the great religions of the world are book-religions; the Karens expected their teachers +in the new religion to bring to them a book. But notice that false religions have +scriptures, but not Scripture; their sacred books lack the principle of unity which is +furnished by divine inspiration. H. P. Smith, Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, 68—<q>Mohammed +discovered that the Scriptures of the Jews were the source of their +religion. He called them a <q>book-people,</q> and endeavored to construct a similar code +for his disciples. In it God is the only speaker; all its contents are made known to the +prophet by direct revelation; its Arabic style is perfect; its text is incorruptible; it is +absolute authority in law, science and history.</q> The Koran is a grotesque human parody +of the Bible; its exaggerated pretensions of divinity, indeed, are the best proof +that it is of purely human origin. Scripture, on the other hand, makes no such claims +for itself, but points to Christ as the sole and final authority. In this sense we may say +with Clarke, Christian Theology, 20—<q>Christianity is not a book-religion, but a life-religion. +The Bible does not give us Christ, but Christ gives us the Bible.</q> Still it is true +that for our knowledge of Christ we are almost wholly dependent upon Scripture. In +giving his revelation to the world, God has followed his ordinary method of communicating +and preserving truth by means of written documents. Recent investigations, +however, now render it probable that the Karen expectation of a book was the survival +of the teaching of the Nestorian missionaries, who as early as the eighth century +penetrated the remotest parts of Asia, and left in the wall of the city of Singwadu in +Northwestern China a tablet as a monument of their labors. On book-revelation, see +Rogers, Eclipse of Faith, 73-96, 281-304. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>As to its attestation.</hi> We may expect that this revelation will be +accompanied by evidence that its author is the same being whom we have +previously recognized as God of nature. This evidence must constitute (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) +a manifestation of God himself; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) in the outward as well as the inward +world; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) such as only God's power or knowledge can make; and (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) such +as cannot be counterfeited by the evil, or mistaken by the candid, soul. +In short, we may expect God to attest by miracles and by prophecy, the +divine mission and authority of those to whom he communicates a revelation. +Some such outward sign would seem to be necessary, not only to assure +the original recipient that the supposed revelation is not a vagary of his +own imagination, but also to render the revelation received by a single +individual authoritative to all (compare Judges 6:17, 36-40—Gideon +asks a sign, for himself; 1 K. 18:36-38—Elijah asks a sign, for others). +<pb n='117'/><anchor id='Pg117'/> +But in order that our positive proof of a divine revelation may not be +embarrassed by the suspicion that the miraculous and prophetic elements +in the Scripture history create a presumption against its credibility, it will +be desirable to take up at this point the general subject of miracles and +prophecy. +</p> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Miracles, as attesting a Divine Revelation.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Definition of Miracle.</head> + +<p> +A. Preliminary Definition.—A miracle is an event palpable to the +senses, produced for a religious purpose by the immediate agency of God; +an event therefore which, though not contravening any law of nature, the +laws of nature, if fully known, would not without this agency of God be +competent to explain. +</p> + +<p> +This definition corrects several erroneous conceptions of the miracle:—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) +A miracle is not a suspension or violation of natural law; since +natural law is in operation at the time of the miracle just as much as before. +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) A miracle is not a sudden product of natural agencies—a product +merely foreseen, by him who appears to work it; it is the effect of a will +outside of nature. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) A miracle is not an event without a cause; since +it has for its cause a direct volition of God. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) A miracle is not an +irrational or capricious act of God; but an act of wisdom, performed in +accordance with the immutable laws of his being, so that in the same circumstances +the same course would be again pursued. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) A miracle is not +contrary to experience; since it is not contrary to experience for a new +cause to be followed by a new effect. (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) A miracle is not a matter of +internal experience, like regeneration or illumination; but is an event palpable +to the senses, which may serve as an objective proof to all that the +worker of it is divinely commissioned as a religious teacher. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For various definitions of miracles, see Alexander, Christ and Christianity, 302. On +the whole subject, see Mozley, Miracles; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christ. Belief, 285-339; +Fisher, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880, and Jan. 1881; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and +Religion, 129-147, and in Baptist Review, April, 1879. The definition given above is +intended simply as a definition of the miracles of the Bible, or, in other words, of +the events which profess to attest a divine revelation in the Scriptures. The New Testament +designates these events in a two-fold way, viewing them either subjectively, +as producing effects upon men, or objectively, as revealing the power and wisdom of +God. In the former aspect they are called τέρατα, <emph><q>wonders,</q></emph> and σημεῖα, <emph><q>signs,</q> (John 4:48; +Acts 2:22)</emph>. In the latter aspect they are called δυνάμεις, <emph><q>powers,</q></emph> and ἔργα, <emph><q>works,</q> (Mat 7:22; +John 14:11)</emph>. See H. B. Smith, Lect. on Apologetics, 90-116, esp. 94—<q>σημεῖον, sign, +marking the purpose or object, the moral end, placing the event in connection with +revelation.</q> The Bible Union Version uniformly and properly renders τέρας by <emph><q>wonder,</q></emph> +δυνάμις by <emph><q>miracle,</q></emph> ἔργον by <emph><q>work,</q></emph> and σημεῖον by <emph><q>sign.</q></emph> Goethe, Faust: <q>Alles Vergängliche +ist nur ein Gleichniss: Das Unzulängliche wird hier Ereigniss</q>—<q>Everything +transitory is but a parable; The unattainable appears as solid fact.</q> So the miracles +of the New Testament are acted parables,—Christ opens the eyes of the blind to show +that he is the Light of the world, multiplies the loaves to show that he is the Bread of +Life, and raises the dead to show that he lifts men up from the death of trespasses and +sins. See Broadus on Matthew, 175. +</p> + +<p> +A modification of this definition of the miracle, however, is demanded by a large class +of Christian physicists, in the supposed interest of natural law. Such a modification is +proposed by Babbage, in the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, chap. viii. Babbage illustrates +the miracle by the action of his calculating machine, which would present to the +observer in regular succession the series of units from one to ten million, but which +would then make a leap and show, not ten million and one, but a hundred million; +<pb n='118'/><anchor id='Pg118'/> +Ephraim Peabody illustrates the miracle from the cathedral clock which strikes only +once in a hundred years; yet both these results are due simply to the original construction +of the respective machines. Bonnet held this view; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 1:591, +592; Eng. translation, 2:155, 156; so Matthew Arnold, quoted in Bruce, Miraculous +Element in Gospels, 52; see also A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 129-147. Babbage +and Peabody would deny that the miracle is due to the direct and immediate agency of +God, and would regard it as belonging to a higher order of nature. God is the author +of the miracle only in the sense that he instituted the laws of nature at the beginning +and provided that at the appropriate time miracle should be their outcome. In favor +of this view it has been claimed that it does not dispense with the divine working, but +only puts it further back at the origination of the system, while it still holds God's +work to be essential, not only to the upholding of the system, but also to the inspiring +of the religious teacher or leader with the knowledge needed to predict the unusual +working of the system. The wonder is confined to the prophecy, which may equally +attest a divine revelation. See Matheson, in Christianity and Evolution, 1-26. +</p> + +<p> +But it is plain that a miracle of this sort lacks to a large degree the element of <q>signality</q> +which is needed, if it is to accomplish its purpose. It surrenders the great +advantage which miracle, as first defined, possessed over special providence, as an attestation +of revelation—the advantage, namely, that while special providence affords <emph>some</emph> +warrant that this revelation comes from God, miracle gives <emph>full</emph> warrant that it comes +from God. Since man may by natural means possess himself of the knowledge of +physical laws, the true miracle which God works, and the pretended miracle which only +man works, are upon this theory far less easy to distinguish from each other: Cortez, +for example, could deceive Montezuma by predicting an eclipse of the sun. Certain +typical miracles, like the resurrection of Lazarus, refuse to be classed as events within +the realm of nature, in the sense in which the term nature is ordinarily used. Our +Lord, moreover, seems clearly to exclude such a theory as this, when he says: <emph><q>If I by +the finger of God cast out demons</q> (Luke 11:20)</emph>; <emph>Mark 1:41—<q>I will; be thou made clean.</q></emph> The view of +Babbage is inadequate, not only because it fails to recognize any immediate exercise +of <emph>will</emph> in the miracle, but because it regards nature as a mere <emph>machine</emph> which can operate +apart from God—a purely deistic method of conception. On this view, many of +the products of mere natural law might be called miracles. The miracle would be only +the occasional manifestation of a higher order of nature, like the comet occasionally +invading the solar system. William Elder, Ideas from Nature: <q>The century-plant +which we have seen growing from our childhood may not unfold its blossoms until our +old age comes upon us, but the sudden wonder is natural notwithstanding.</q> If, however, +we interpret nature dynamically, rather than mechanically, and regard it as the +regular working of the divine will instead of the automatic operation of a machine, +there is much in this view which we may adopt. Miracle may be both natural and +supernatural. We may hold, with Babbage, that it has natural antecedents, while at +the same time we hold that it is produced by the immediate agency of God. We proceed +therefore to an alternative and preferable definition, which in our judgment +combines the merits of both that have been mentioned. On miracles as already +defined, see Mozley, Miracles, preface, ix-xxvi, 7, 143-166; Bushnell, Nature and Supernatural, +333-336; Smith's and Hastings' Dict. of Bible, art.: Miracles; Abp. Temple, +Bampton Lectures for 1884:193-221; Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 1:541, 542. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Alternative and Preferable Definition.—A miracle is an event in +nature, so extraordinary in itself and so coinciding with the prophecy or +command of a religious teacher or leader, as fully to warrant the conviction, +on the part of those who witness it, that God has wrought it with +the design of certifying that this teacher or leader has been commissioned +by him. +</p> + +<p> +This definition has certain marked advantages as compared with the preliminary +definition given above:—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It recognizes the immanence of +God and his immediate agency in nature, instead of assuming an antithesis +between the laws of nature and the will of God. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It regards the miracle +as simply an extraordinary act of that same God who is already present +in all natural operations and who in them is revealing his general plan. +<pb n='119'/><anchor id='Pg119'/> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It holds that natural law, as the method of God's regular activity, in +no way precludes unique exertions of his power when these will best secure +his purpose in creation. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) It leaves it possible that all miracles may +have their natural explanations and may hereafter be traced to natural +causes, while both miracles and their natural causes may be only names +for the one and self-same will of God. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) It reconciles the claims of +both science and religion: of science, by permitting any possible or probable +physical antecedents of the miracle; of religion, by maintaining that +these very antecedents together with the miracle itself are to be interpreted +as signs of God's special commission to him under whose teaching or +leadership the miracle is wrought. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Augustine, who declares that <q>Dei voluntas rerum natura est,</q> defines the miracle +in De Civitate Dei, 21:8—<q>Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam +est nota natura.</q> He says also that a birth is more miraculous than a resurrection, +because it is more wonderful that something that never was should begin to be, than +that something that was and ceased to be should begin again. E. G. Robinson, Christ. +Theology, 104—<q>The natural is God's work. He originated it. There is no separation +between the natural and the supernatural. The natural is supernatural. God works +in everything. Every end, even though attained by mechanical means, is God's end +as truly as if he wrought by miracle.</q> Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 141, regards +miracle as something exceptional, yet under the control of natural law; the latent in +nature suddenly manifesting itself; the revolution resulting from the slow accumulation +of natural forces. In the Windsor Hotel fire, the heated and charred woodwork +suddenly burst into flame. Flame is very different from mere heat, but it may be the +result of a regularly rising temperature. Nature may be God's regular action, miracle +its unique result. God's regular action may be entirely free, and yet its extraordinary +result may be entirely natural. With these qualifications and explanations, we may +adopt the statement of Biedermann, Dogmatik, 581-591—<q>Everything is miracle,—therefore +faith sees God everywhere; Nothing is miracle,—therefore science sees God +nowhere.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Miracles are never considered by the Scripture writers as infractions of law. Bp. +Southampton, Place of Miracles, 18—<q>The Hebrew historian or prophet regarded miracles +as only the emergence into sensible experience of that divine force which was all +along, though invisibly, controlling the course of nature.</q> Hastings, Bible Dictionary, +4:117—<q>The force of a miracle to us, arising from our notion of law, would not be felt +by a Hebrew, because he had no notion of natural law.</q> <emph>Ps. 77:19, 20—<q>Thy way was in the +sea, And thy paths in the great waters, And thy footsteps were not known</q></emph>—They knew not, and we +know not, by what precise means the deliverance was wrought, or by what precise track +the passage through the Red Sea was effected; all we know is that <emph><q>Thou leddest thy people +like a flock, By the hand of Moses and Aaron.</q></emph> J. M. Whiton, Miracles and Supernatural Religion: +<q>The supernatural is in nature itself, at its very heart, at its very life; ... not an +outside power interfering with the course of nature, but an inside power vitalizing +nature and operating through it.</q> Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 35—<q>Miracle, +instead of spelling <q>monster</q>, as Emerson said, simply bears witness to some +otherwise unknown or unrecognized aspect of the divine character.</q> Shedd, Dogm. +Theol., 1:533—<q>To cause the sun to rise and to cause Lazarus to rise, both demand +omnipotence; but the manner in which omnipotence works in one instance is unlike +the manner in the other.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Miracle is an immediate operation of God; but, since all natural processes are also +immediate operations of God, we do not need to deny the use of these natural processes, +so far as they will go, in miracle. Such wonders of the Old Testament as the +overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, the partings of the Red Sea and of the Jordan, the +calling down of fire from heaven by Elijah and the destruction of the army of Sennacherib, +are none the less works of God when regarded as wrought by the use of natural +means. In the New Testament Christ took water to make wine, and took the five +loaves to make bread, just as in ten thousand vineyards to-day he is turning the moisture +of the earth into the juice of the grape, and in ten thousand fields is turning carbon +into corn. The virgin-birth of Christ may be an extreme instance of parthenogenesis, +which Professor Loeb of Chicago has just demonstrated to take place in other than the +<pb n='120'/><anchor id='Pg120'/> +lowest forms of life and which he believes to be possible in all. Christ's resurrection +may be an illustration of the power of the normal and perfect human spirit to take to +itself a proper body, and so may be the type and prophecy of that great change when +we too shall lay down our life and take it again. The scientist may yet find that his +disbelief is not only disbelief in Christ, but also disbelief in science. All miracle may +have its natural side, though we now are not able to discern it; and, if this were true, +the Christian argument would not one whit be weakened, for still miracle would evidence +the extraordinary working of the immanent God, and the impartation of his knowledge +to the prophet or apostle who was his instrument. +</p> + +<p> +This view of the miracle renders entirely unnecessary and irrational the treatment +accorded to the Scripture narratives by some modern theologians. There is a credulity +of scepticism, which minimizes the miraculous element in the Bible and treats it as +mythical or legendary, in spite of clear evidence that it belongs to the realm of actual +history. Pfleiderer, Philos. Relig., 1:295—<q>Miraculous legends arise in two ways, +partly out of the idealizing of the real, and partly out of the realizing of the ideal.... +Every occurrence may obtain for the religious judgment the significance of a sign +or proof of the world-governing power, wisdom, justice or goodness of God.... +Miraculous histories are a poetic realizing of religious ideas.</q> Pfleiderer quotes Goethe's +apothegm: <q>Miracle is faith's dearest child.</q> Foster, Finality of the Christian Religion, +128-138—<q>We most honor biblical miraculous narratives when we seek to understand +them as poesies.</q> Ritschl defines miracles as <q>those striking <hi rend='italic'>natural</hi> occurrences +with which the experience of God's special help is connected.</q> He leaves doubtful the +bodily resurrection of Christ, and many of his school deny it; see Mead, Ritschl's Place +in the History of Doctrine, 11. We do not need to interpret Christ's resurrection as a +mere appearance of his spirit to the disciples. Gladden, Seven Puzzling Books, 202—<q>In +the hands of perfect and spiritual man, the forces of nature are pliant and tractable +as they are not in ours. The resurrection of Christ is only a sign of the superiority +of the life of the perfect spirit over external conditions. It may be perfectly in +accordance with nature.</q> Myers, Human Personality, 2:288—<q>I predict that, in consequence +of the new evidence, all reasonable men, a century hence, will believe the +resurrection of Christ.</q> We may add that Jesus himself intimates that the working of +miracles is hereafter to be a common and natural manifestation of the new life which +he imparts: <emph>John 14:12—<q>He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works +than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +We append a number of opinions, ancient and modern, with regard to miracles, all +tending to show the need of so defining them as not to conflict with the just claims of +science. Aristotle: <q>Nature is not full of episodes, like a bad tragedy.</q> Shakespeare, +All's Well that Ends Well, 2:3:1—<q>They say miracles are past; and we have our +philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. +Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors, ensconsing ourselves into seeming knowledge, +when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.</q> Keats, Lamia: <q>There +was an awful rainbow once in heaven; We know her woof, her texture: she is given In +the dull catalogue of common things.</q> Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 334—<q>Biological and +psychological science unite in affirming that every event, organic or psychic, is to be +explained in the terms of its immediate antecedents, and that it can be so explained. +There is therefore no necessity, there is even no room, for interference. If the existence +of a Deity depends upon the evidence of intervention and supernatural agency, +faith in the divine seems to be destroyed in the scientific mind.</q> Theodore Parker: +<q>No whim in God,—therefore no miracle in nature.</q> Armour, Atonement and Law, +15-33—<q>The miracle of redemption, like all miracles, is by intervention of adequate +power, not by suspension of law. Redemption is not <q>the great exception.</q> It is the +fullest revelation and vindication of law.</q> Gore, in Lux Mundi, 320—<q>Redemption is +not natural but supernatural—supernatural, that is, in view of the false nature which +man made for himself by excluding God. Otherwise, the work of redemption is only +the reconstitution of the nature which God had designed.</q> Abp. Trench: <q>The world +of nature is throughout a witness for the world of spirit, proceeding from the same +hand, growing out of the same root, and being constituted for this very end. The +characters of nature which everywhere meet the eye are not a common but a sacred +writing,—they are the hieroglyphics of God.</q> Pascal: <q>Nature is the image of grace.</q> +President Mark Hopkins: <q>Christianity and perfect Reason are identical.</q> See Mead, +Supernatural Revelation, 97-123; art.: Miracle, by Bernard, in Hastings' Dictionary of +the Bible. The modern and improved view of the miracle is perhaps best presented by +T. H. Wright, The Finger of God; and by W. N. Rice, Christian Faith in an Age of +Science, 336. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='121'/><anchor id='Pg121'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Possibility of Miracle.</head> + +<p> +An event in nature may be caused by an agent in nature yet above +nature. This is evident from the following considerations: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Lower forces and laws in nature are frequently counteracted and +transcended by the higher (as mechanical forces and laws by chemical, and +chemical by vital), while yet the lower forces and laws are not suspended +or annihilated, but are merged in the higher, and made to assist in accomplishing +purposes to which they are altogether unequal when left to themselves. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +By nature we mean nature in the proper sense—not <q>everything that is not God,</q> but +<q>everything that is not God or made in the image of God</q>; see Hopkins, Outline Study +of Man, 258, 259. Man's will does not belong to nature, but is above nature. On the +transcending of lower forces by higher, see Murphy, Habit and Intelligence, 1:88. +James Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, 23—<q>Is it impossible that there should be +unique things in the world? Is it scientific to assert that there are not?</q> Ladd, Philosophy +of Knowledge, 406—<q>Why does not the projecting part of the coping-stone fall, +in obedience to the law of gravitation, from the top of yonder building? Because, as +physics declares, the forces of cohesion, acting under quite different laws, thwart and +oppose for the time being the law of gravitation.... But now, after a frosty +night, the coping-stone actually breaks off and tumbles to the ground; for that unique +law which makes water forcibly expand at 32° Fahrenheit has contradicted the laws of +cohesion and has restored to the law of gravitation its temporarily suspended rights +over this mass of matter.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 48—<q>Evolution views nature as a progressive +order in which there are new departures, fresh levels won, phenomena +unknown before. When organic life appeared, the future did not resemble the past. +So when man came. Christ is a new nature—the creative Word made flesh. It is to be +expected that, as new nature, he will exhibit new phenomena. New vital energy will +radiate from him, controlling the material forces. Miracles are the proper accompaniments +of his person.</q> We may add that, as Christ is the immanent God, he is present +in nature while at the same time he is above nature, and he whose steady will is the +essence of all natural law can transcend all past exertions of that will. The infinite +One is not a being of endless monotony. William Elder, Ideas from Nature, 156—<q>God +is not bound hopelessly to his process, like Ixion to his wheel.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The human will acts upon its physical organism, and so upon nature, +and produces results which nature left to herself never could accomplish, +while yet no law of nature is suspended or violated. Gravitation still operates +upon the axe, even while man holds it at the surface of the water—for +the axe still has weight (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 2 K. 6:5-7). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Hume, Philos. Works, 4:130—<q>A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.</q> +Christian apologists have too often needlessly embarrassed their argument by accepting +Hume's definition. The stigma is entirely undeserved. If man can support the axe +at the surface of the water while gravitation still acts upon it, God can certainly, at +the prophet's word, make the iron to swim, while gravitation still acts upon it. But this +last is miracle. See Mansel, Essay on Miracles, in Aids to Faith, 26, 27: After the +greatest wave of the season has landed its pebble high up on the beach, I can move the +pebble a foot further without altering the force of wind or wave or climate in a distant +continent. Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 471; Hamilton, Autology, 685-690; +Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 445; Row, Bampton Lectures on Christian Evidences, 54-74; +A. A. Hodge: Pulling out a new stop of the organ does not suspend the working or +destroy the harmony of the other stops. The pump does not suspend the law of +gravitation, nor does our throwing a ball into the air. If gravitation did not act, the +upward velocity of the ball would not diminish and the ball would never return. +<q>Gravitation draws iron down. But the magnet overcomes that attraction and draws +the iron up. Yet here is no suspension or violation of law, but rather a harmonious +working of two laws, each in its sphere. Death and not life is the order of nature. But +<pb n='122'/><anchor id='Pg122'/> +men live notwithstanding. Life is supernatural. Only as a force additional to mere +nature works against nature does life exist. So spiritual life uses and transcends the +laws of nature</q> (Sunday School Times). Gladden, What Is Left? 60—<q>Wherever +you find thought, choice, love, you find something that is not under the dominion of +fixed law. These are the attributes of a free personality.</q> William James: <q>We need +to substitute the <emph>personal</emph> view of life for the <emph>impersonal</emph> and <emph>mechanical</emph> view. Mechanical +rationalism is narrowness and partial induction of facts,—it is not <emph>science</emph>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) In all free causation, there is an acting without means. Man acts +upon external nature through his physical organism, but, in moving his +physical organism, he acts directly upon matter. In other words, the +human will can <emph>use</emph> means, only because it has the power of acting initially +<emph>without</emph> means. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Hopkins, on Prayer-gauge, 10, and in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882:188. A. J. +Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 311—<q>Not Divinity alone intervenes in the world of +things. Each living soul, in its measure and degree, does the same.</q> Each soul that +acts in any way on its surroundings does so on the principle of the miracle. Phillips +Brooks, Life, 2:350—<q>The making of all events miraculous is no more an abolition of +miracle than the flooding of the world with sunshine is an extinction of the sun.</q> +George Adam Smith, on <emph>Is. 33:14—<q>devouring fire ... everlasting burnings</q></emph>: <q>If we look +at a conflagration through smoked glass, we see buildings collapsing, but we see no +fire. So science sees results, but not the power which produces them; sees cause and +effect, but does not see God.</q> P. S. Henson: <q>The current in an electric wire is invisible +so long as it circulates uniformly. But cut the wire and insert a piece of carbon +between the two broken ends, and at once you have an arc-light that drives away the +darkness. So miracle is only the momentary interruption in the operation of uniform +laws, which thus gives light to the ages,</q>—or, let us say rather, the momentary change +in the method of their operation whereby the will of God takes a new form of manifestation. +Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 100—<q>Spinoza leugnete ihre metaphysische Möglichkeit, +Hume ihre geschichtliche Erkennbarkeit, Kant ihre practische Brauchbarkeit, +Schleiermacher ihre religiöse Bedeutsamkeit, Hegel ihre geistige Beweiskraft, Fichte +ihre wahre Christlichkeit, und die kritische Theologie ihre wahre Geschichtlichkeit.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) What the human will, considered as a supernatural force, and what +the chemical and vital forces of nature itself, are demonstrably able to +accomplish, cannot be regarded as beyond the power of God, so long as +God dwells in and controls the universe. If man's will can act directly +upon matter in his own physical organism, God's will can work immediately +upon the system which he has created and which he sustains. In +other words, if there be a God, and if he be a personal being, miracles are +possible. The impossibility of miracles can be maintained only upon principles +of atheism or pantheism. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrection, 19; Cox, Miracles, an Argument and a +Challenge: <q>Anthropomorphism is preferable to hylomorphism.</q> Newman Smyth, +Old Faiths in a New Light, ch. 1—<q>A miracle is not a sudden blow struck in the face +of nature, but a use of nature, according to its inherent capacities, by higher powers.</q> +See also Gloatz, Wunder und Naturgesetz, in Studien und Kritiken, 1886:403-546; Gunsaulus, +Transfiguration of Christ, 18, 19, 26; Andover Review, on <q>Robert Elsmere,</q> +1888:303; W. E. Gladstone, in Nineteenth Century, 1888:766-788; Dubois, on Science and +Miracle, in New Englander, July, 1889:1-32—Three postulates: (1) Every particle +attracts every other in the universe; (2) Man's will is free; (3) Every volition is accompanied +by corresponding brain-action. Hence every volition of ours causes changes +throughout the whole universe; also, in Century Magazine, Dec. 1894:229—Conditions +are never twice the same in nature; all things are the results of will, since we know +that the least thought of ours shakes the universe; miracle is simply the action of will +in unique conditions; the beginning of life, the origin of consciousness, these are miracles, +yet they are strictly natural; prayer and the mind that frames it are conditions +which <emph>the Mind</emph> in nature cannot ignore. <emph><hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> Ps. 115:3—<q>our God is in the heavens: He hath done +<pb n='123'/><anchor id='Pg123'/> +whatsoever he pleased</q></emph> = his almighty power and freedom do away with all <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> objections +to miracles. If God is not a mere <emph>force</emph>, but a <emph>person</emph>, then miracles are possible. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) This possibility of miracles becomes doubly sure to those who see +in Christ none other than the immanent God manifested to creatures. The +Logos or divine Reason who is the principle of all growth and evolution +can make God known only by means of successive new impartations of his +energy. Since all progress implies increment, and Christ is the only +source of life, the whole history of creation is a witness to the possibility +of miracle. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 163-166—<q rend='pre'>This conception of evolution is that +of Lotze. That great philosopher, whose influence is more potent than any other in +present thought, does not regard the universe as a <emph>plenum</emph> to which nothing can be +added in the way of force. He looks upon the universe rather as a plastic organism to +which new impulses can be imparted from him of whose thought and will it is an +expression. These impulses, once imparted, abide in the organism and are thereafter +subject to its law. Though these impulses come from within, they come not from the +finite mechanism but from the immanent God. Robert Browning's phrase, <q>All's love, +but all's law,</q> must be interpreted as meaning that the very movements of the planets +and all the operations of nature are revelations of a personal and present God, but it +must not be interpreted as meaning that God runs in a rut, that he is confined to mechanism, +that he is incapable of unique and startling manifestations of power.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q rend='pre'>The idea that gives to evolution its hold upon thinking minds is the idea of continuity. +But absolute continuity is inconsistent with progress. If the future is not simply +a reproduction of the past, there must be some new cause of change. In order to +progress there must be either a new force, or a new combination of forces, and the +new combination of forces can be explained only by some new force that causes the +combination. This new force, moreover, must be intelligent force, if the evolution is +to be toward the better instead of toward the worse. The continuity must be continuity +not of forces but of plan. The forces may increase, nay, they must increase, unless +the new is to be a mere repetition of the old. There must be additional energy +imparted, the new combination brought about, and all this implies purpose and will. +But through all there runs one continuous plan, and upon this plan the rationality of +evolution depends.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q rend='pre'>A man builds a house. In laying the foundation he uses stone and mortar, but he +makes the walls of wood and the roof of tin. In the superstructure he brings into +play different laws from those which apply to the foundation. There is continuity, +not of material, but of plan. Progress from cellar to garret requires breaks here and +there, and the bringing in of new forces; in fact, without the bringing in of these new +forces the evolution of the house would be impossible. Now substitute for the foundation +and superstructure living things like the chrysalis and the butterfly; imagine +the power to work from within and not from without; and you see that true continuity +does not exclude but involves new beginnings.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Evolution, then, depends on increments of force <hi rend='italic'>plus</hi> continuity of plan. New creations +are possible because the immanent God has not exhausted himself. Miracle is +possible because God is not far away, but is at hand to do whatever the needs of his +moral universe may require. Regeneration and answers to prayer are possible for the +very reason that these are the objects for which the universe was built. If we were +deists, believing in a distant God and a mechanical universe, evolution and Christianity +would be irreconcilable. But since we believe in a dynamical universe, of which +the personal and living God is the inner source of energy, evolution is but the basis, +foundation and background of Christianity, the silent and regular working of him +who, in the fulness of time, utters his voice in Christ and the Cross.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Lotze's own statement of his position may be found in his Microcosmos, 2:479 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +Professor James Ten Broeke has interpreted him as follows: <q>He makes the possibility +of the miracle depend upon the close and intimate action and reaction between the +world and the personal Absolute, in consequence of which the movements of the natural +world are carried on only <emph>through</emph> the Absolute, with the possibility of a variation +in the general course of things, according to existing facts and the purpose of the +divine Governor.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='124'/><anchor id='Pg124'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Probability of Miracles.</head> + +<p> +A. We acknowledge that, so long as we confine our attention to nature, +there is a presumption against miracles. Experience testifies to the uniformity +of natural law. A general uniformity is needful, in order to make +possible a rational calculation of the future, and a proper ordering of life. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Butler, Analogy, part ii, chap. ii; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 3-45; +Modern Scepticism, 1:179-227; Chalmers, Christian Revelation, 1:47. G. D. B. Pepper: +<q>Where there is no law, no settled order, there can be no miracle. The miracle +presupposes the law, and the importance assigned to miracles is the recognition of the +reign of law. But the making and launching of a ship may be governed by law, no less +than the sailing of the ship after it is launched. So the introduction of a higher spiritual +order into a merely natural order constitutes a new and unique event.</q> Some +Christian apologists have erred in affirming that the miracle was antecedently as probable +as any other event, whereas only its antecedent improbability gives it value as a +proof of revelation. Horace: <q>Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. But we deny that this uniformity of nature is absolute and universal. +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It is not a truth of reason that can have no exceptions, like the +axiom that a whole is greater than its parts. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Experience could not +warrant a belief in absolute and universal uniformity, unless experience +were identical with absolute and universal knowledge. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) We know, on +the contrary, from geology, that there have been breaks in this uniformity, +such as the introduction of vegetable, animal and human life, which cannot +be accounted for, except by the manifestation in nature of a supernatural +power. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Compare the probability that the sun will rise to-morrow morning with the certainty +that two and two make four. Huxley, Lay Sermons, 158, indignantly denies that +there is any <q>must</q> about the uniformity of nature: <q>No one is entitled to say <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> +that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible.</q> Ward, Naturalism and +Agnosticism, 1:84—<q>There is no evidence for the statement that the mass of the universe +is a definite and unchangeable quantity</q>; 108, 109—<q>Why so confidently assume +that a rigid and monotonous uniformity is the only, or the highest, indication of order, +the order of an ever living Spirit, above all? How is it that we depreciate machine-made +articles, and prefer those in which the artistic impulse, or the fitness of the individual +case, is free to shape and to make what is literally manufactured, hand-made?... +Dangerous as teleological arguments in general may be, we may at least safely +say the world was not designed to make science easy.... To call the verses of a +poet, the politics of a statesman, or the award of a judge mechanical, implies, as Lotze +has pointed out, marked disparagement, although it implies, too, precisely those characteristics—exactness +and invariability—in which Maxwell would have us see a token +of the divine.</q> Surely then we must not insist that divine wisdom must always run in +a rut, must ever repeat itself, must never exhibit itself in unique acts like incarnation +and resurrection. See Edward Hitchcock, in Bib. Sac., 20:489-561, on <q>The Law +of Nature's Constancy Subordinate to the Higher Law of Change</q>; Jevons, Principles +of Science, 2:430-438; Mozley, Miracles, 26. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, 18 December, 1831—<q>The light which experience +gives us is a lantern on the stern of the ship, which shines only on the waves behind +us.</q> Hobbes: <q>Experience concludeth nothing universally.</q> Brooks, Foundations +of Zoölogy, 131—<q>Evidence can tell us only what has happened, and it can never +assure us that the future <emph>must</emph> be like the past; 132—Proof that all nature is mechanical +would not be inconsistent with the belief that everything in nature is immediately +sustained by Providence, and that my volition counts for something in determining +the course of events.</q> Royce, World and Individual, 2:204—<q>Uniformity is not absolute. +Nature is a vaster realm of life and meaning, of which we men form a part, and +of which the final unity is in God's life. The rhythm of the heart-beat has its normal +regularity, yet its limited persistence. Nature may be merely the <emph>habits of free will</emph>. +Every region of this universally conscious world may be a centre whence issues new +<pb n='125'/><anchor id='Pg125'/> +conscious life for communication to all the worlds.</q> Principal Fairbairn: <q>Nature is +Spirit.</q> We prefer to say: <q>Nature is the manifestation of spirit, the regularities of +freedom.</q> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Other breaks in the uniformity of nature are the coming of Christ and the regeneration +of a human soul. Harnack, What is Christianity, 18, holds that though there +are no interruptions to the working of natural law, natural law is not yet fully known. +While there are no miracles, there is plenty of the miraculous. The power of mind over +matter is beyond our present conceptions. Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 210—The +effects are no more consequences of the laws than the laws are consequences of the +effects = both laws and effects are exercises of divine will. King, Reconstruction in +Theology, 56—We must hold, not to the <emph>uniformity</emph> of law, but to the <emph>universality</emph> of law; +for evolution has successive stages with new laws coming in and becoming dominant +that had not before appeared. The new and higher stage is practically a miracle from +the point of view of the lower. See British Quarterly Review, Oct. 1881:154; Martineau, +Study, 2:200, 203, 209. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. Since the inworking of the moral law into the constitution and +course of nature shows that nature exists, not for itself, but for the contemplation +and use of moral beings, it is probable that the God of nature +will produce effects aside from those of natural law, whenever there are +sufficiently important moral ends to be served thereby. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Beneath the expectation of uniformity is the intuition of final cause; the former +may therefore give way to the latter. See Porter, Human Intellect, 592-615—Efficient +causes and final causes may conflict, and then the efficient give place to the final. This +is miracle. See Hutton, in Nineteenth Century, Aug. 1885, and Channing, Evidences of +Revealed Religion, quoted in Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:534, 535—<q>The order of the universe +is a means, not an end, and like all other means must give way when the end can +be best promoted without it. It is the mark of a weak mind to make an idol of order +and method; to cling to established forms of business when they clog instead of advancing +it.</q> Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 357—<q>The stability of the heavens is in the +sight of God of less importance than the moral growth of the human spirit.</q> This is +proved by the Incarnation. The Christian sees in this little earth the scene of God's +greatest revelation. The superiority of the spiritual to the physical helps us to see our +true dignity in the creation, to rule our bodies, to overcome our sins. Christ's suffering +shows us that God is no indifferent spectator of human pain. He subjects himself +to our conditions, or rather in this subjection reveals to us God's own eternal suffering +for sin. The atonement enables us to solve the problem of sin. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. The existence of moral disorder consequent upon the free acts of +man's will, therefore, changes the presumption against miracles into a presumption +in their favor. The non-appearance of miracles, in this case, +would be the greatest of wonders. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 331-335—So a man's personal consciousness +of sin, and above all his personal experience of regenerating grace, will constitute +the best preparation for the study of miracles. <q>Christianity cannot be proved except +to a bad conscience.</q> The dying Vinet said well: <q>The greatest miracle that I know of +is that of my conversion. I was dead, and I live; I was blind, and I see; I was a slave, +and I am free; I was an enemy of God, and I love him; prayer, the Bible, the society of +Christians, these were to me a source of profound <emph>ennui</emph>; whilst now it is the pleasures +of the world that are wearisome to me, and piety is the source of all my joy. Behold +the miracle! And if God has been able to work that one, there are none of which he is +not capable.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Yet the physical and the moral are not <q>sundered as with an axe.</q> Nature is but the +lower stage or imperfect form of the revelation of God's truth and holiness and love. +It prepares the way for the miracle by suggesting, though more dimly, the same +essential characteristics of the divine nature. Ignorance and sin necessitate a larger +disclosure. G. S. Lee, The Shadow Christ, 84—<q>The pillar of cloud was the dim night-lamp +that Jehovah kept burning over his infant children, to show them that he was there. +They did not know that the night itself was God.</q> Why do we have Christmas presents +in Christian homes? Because the parents do not love their children at other times? +<pb n='126'/><anchor id='Pg126'/> +No; but because the mind becomes sluggish in the presence of merely regular kindness, +and special gifts are needed to wake it to gratitude. So our sluggish and unloving +minds need special testimonies of the divine mercy. Shall God alone be shut up to +dull uniformities of action? Shall the heavenly Father alone be unable to make special +communications of love? Why then are not miracles and revivals of religion constant +and uniform? Because uniform blessings would be regarded simply as workings of a +machine. See Mozley, Miracles, preface, xxiv; Turner, Wish and Will, 291-315; N. W. +Taylor, Moral Government, 2:388-423. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +E. As belief in the possibility of miracles rests upon our belief in the +existence of a personal God, so belief in the probability of miracles rests +upon our belief that God is a moral and benevolent being. He who has +no God but a God of physical order will regard miracles as an impertinent +intrusion upon that order. But he who yields to the testimony of conscience +and regards God as a God of holiness, will see that man's unholiness +renders God's miraculous interposition most necessary to man and +most becoming to God. Our view of miracles will therefore be determined +by our belief in a moral, or in a non-moral, God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Philo, in his Life of Moses, 1:88, speaking of the miracles of the quails and of the +water from the rock, says that <q>all these unexpected and extraordinary things are +amusements or playthings of God.</q> He believes that there is room for arbitrariness +in the divine procedure. Scripture however represents miracle as an extraordinary, +rather than as an arbitrary, act. It is <emph><q>his work, his strange work ... his act, his strange act</q> +(Is. 28:21)</emph>. God's ordinary method is that of regular growth and development. Chadwick, +Unitarianism, 72—<q>Nature is economical. If she wants an apple, she develops a +leaf; if she wants a brain, she develops a vertebra. We always thought well of backbone; +and, if Goethe's was a sound suggestion, we think better of it now.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is commonly, but very erroneously, taken for granted that miracle requires a +greater exercise of power than does God's upholding of the ordinary processes of +nature. But to an omnipotent Being our measures of power have no application. The +question is not a question of power, but of rationality and love. Miracle implies self-restraint, +as well as self-unfolding, on the part of him who works it. It is therefore +not God's common method of action; it is adopted only when regular methods will not +suffice; it often seems accompanied by a sacrifice of feeling on the part of Christ <emph>Mat. +17:17—<q>O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you? +bring him hither to me</q></emph>; <emph>Mark 7:34—<q>looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, +Be opened</q></emph>; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Mat. 12:39—<q>An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign +be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +F. From the point of view of ethical monism the probability of miracle +becomes even greater. Since God is not merely the intellectual but the +moral Reason of the world, the disturbances of the world-order which are +due to sin are the matters which most deeply affect him. Christ, the life of +the whole system and of humanity as well, must suffer; and, since we have +evidence that he is merciful as well as just, it is probable that he will rectify +the evil by extraordinary means, when merely ordinary means do not +avail. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Like creation and providence, like inspiration and regeneration, miracle is a work in +which God limits himself, by a new and peculiar exercise of his power,—limits himself +as part of a process of condescending love and as a means of teaching sense-environed +and sin-burdened humanity what it would not learn in any other way. Self-limitation, +however, is the very perfection and glory of God, for without it no self-sacrificing love +would be possible (see page 9, F.). The probability of miracles is therefore argued not +only from God's holiness but also from his love. His desire to save men from their +sins must be as infinite as his nature. The incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection, +when once made known to us, commend themselves, not only as satisfying our human +needs, but as worthy of a God of moral perfection. +</p> + +<pb n='127'/><anchor id='Pg127'/> + +<p> +An argument for the probability of the miracle might be drawn from the concessions +of one of its chief modern opponents, Thomas H. Huxley. He tells us in different +places that the object of science is <q>the discovery of the rational order that pervades the +universe,</q> which in spite of his professed agnosticism is an unconscious testimony to +Reason and Will at the basis of all things. He tells us again that there is no necessity in +the uniformities of nature: <q>When we change <q>will</q> into <q>must,</q> we introduce an idea +of necessity which has no warrant in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I +can discover elsewhere.</q> He speaks of <q>the infinite wickedness that has attended the +course of human history.</q> Yet he has no hope in man's power to save himself: <q>I would +as soon adore a wilderness of apes,</q> as the Pantheist's rationalized conception of +humanity. He grants that Jesus Christ is <q>the noblest ideal of humanity which mankind +has yet worshiped.</q> Why should he not go further and concede that Jesus Christ most +truly represents the infinite Reason at the heart of things, and that his purity and love, +demonstrated by suffering and death, make it probable that God will use extraordinary +means for man's deliverance? It is doubtful whether Huxley recognized his +own personal sinfulness as fully as he recognized the sinfulness of humanity in general. +If he had done so, he would have been willing to accept miracle upon even a slight preponderance +of historical proof. As a matter of fact, he rejected miracle upon the +grounds assigned by Hume, which we now proceed to mention. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. Amount of Testimony necessary to prove a Miracle.</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The amount of testimony necessary to prove a miracle</hi> is no +greater than that which is requisite to prove the occurrence of any other +unusual but confessedly possible event. +</p> + +<p> +Hume, indeed, argued that a miracle is so contradictory of all human +experience that it is more reasonable to believe any amount of testimony +false than to believe a miracle to be true. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The original form of the argument can be found in Hume's Philosophical Works, 4:124-150. +See also Bib. Sac., Oct. 1867:615. For the most recent and plausible statement +of it, see Supernatural Religion, 1:55-94. The argument maintains for substance +that things are impossible because improbable. It ridicules the credulity of those who +<q>thrust their fists against the posts, And still insist they see the ghosts,</q> and holds with +the German philosopher who declared that he would not believe in a miracle, even if +he saw one with his own eyes. Christianity is so miraculous that it takes a miracle to +make one believe it. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The argument is fallacious, because +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It is chargeable with a <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>petitio principii</foreign>, in making our own personal +experience the measure of all human experience. The same principle +would make the proof of any absolutely new fact impossible. Even though +God should work a miracle, he could never prove it. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It involves a self-contradiction, since it seeks to overthrow our faith +in human testimony by adducing to the contrary the general experience of +men, of which we know only from testimony. This general experience, +moreover, is merely negative, and cannot neutralize that which is positive, +except upon principles which would invalidate all testimony whatever. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It requires belief in a greater wonder than those which it would +escape. That multitudes of intelligent and honest men should against all +their interests unite in deliberate and persistent falsehood, under the circumstances +narrated in the New Testament record, involves a change in the +sequences of nature far more incredible than the miracles of Christ and his +apostles. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) John Stuart Mill, Essays on Theism, 216-241, grants that, even if a miracle were +wrought, it would be impossible to prove it. In this he only echoes Hume, Miracles, +112—<q>The ultimate standard by which we determine all disputes that may arise is +always derived from experience and observation.</q> But here our own personal experience +<pb n='128'/><anchor id='Pg128'/> +is made the standard by which to judge all human experience. Whately, Historic +Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, shows that the same rule would require us to +deny the existence of the great Frenchman, since Napoleon's conquests were contrary +to all experience, and civilized nations had never before been so subdued. The London +Times for June 18, 1888, for the first time in at least a hundred years or in 31,200 issues, +was misdated, and certain pages read June 17, although June 17 was Sunday. Yet the +paper would have been admitted in a court of justice as evidence of a marriage. The +real wonder is, not the break in experience, but the continuity without the break. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Lyman Abbott: <q>If the Old Testament told the story of a naval engagement +between the Jewish people and a pagan people, in which all the ships of the pagan +people were absolutely destroyed and not a single man was killed among the Jews, all +the sceptics would have scorned the narrative. Every one now believes it, except those +who live in Spain.</q> There are people who in a similar way refuse to investigate the +phenomena of hypnotism, second sight, clairvoyance, and telepathy, declaring <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> +that all these things are impossible. Prophecy, in the sense of prediction, is discredited. +Upon the same principle wireless telegraphy might be denounced as an imposture. +The son of Erin charged with murder defended himself by saying: <q>Your +honor, I can bring fifty people who did not see me do it.</q> Our faith in testimony cannot +be due to experience. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) On this point, see Chalmers, Christian Revelation, 3:70; Starkie on Evidence, +739; De Quincey, Theological Essays, 1:162-188; Thornton, Old-fashioned Ethics, 143-153; +Campbell on Miracles. South's sermon on The Certainty of our Savior's Resurrection +had stated and answered this objection long before Hume propounded it. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>5. Evidential force of Miracles.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Miracles are the natural accompaniments and attestations of new +communications from God. The great epochs of miracles—represented by +Moses, the prophets, the first and second comings of Christ—are coincident +with the great epochs of revelation. Miracles serve to draw attention +to new truth, and cease when this truth has gained currency and foothold. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Miracles are not scattered evenly over the whole course of history. Few miracles are +recorded during the 2500 years from Adam to Moses. When the N. T. Canon is completed +and the internal evidence of Scripture has attained its greatest strength, the +external attestations by miracle are either wholly withdrawn or begin to disappear. +The spiritual wonders of regeneration remain, and for these the way has been prepared +by the long progress from the miracles of power wrought by Moses to the miracles +of grace wrought by Christ. Miracles disappeared because newer and higher +proofs rendered them unnecessary. Better things than these are now in evidence. +Thomas Fuller: <q>Miracles are the swaddling-clothes of the infant church.</q> John Foster: +<q>Miracles are the great bell of the universe, which draws men to God's sermon.</q> +Henry Ward Beecher: <q>Miracles are the midwives of great moral truths; candles lit +before the dawn but put out after the sun has risen.</q> Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, 210—<q>When +we are told that miracles contradict experience, we point to the daily occurrence +of the spiritual miracle of regeneration and ask: <emph><q>Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; +or to say, Arise and walk?</q> (Mat. 9:5)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Miracles and inspiration go together; if the former remain in the church, the latter +should remain also; see Marsh, in Bap. Quar. Rev., 1887:225-242. On the cessation of +miracles in the early church, see Henderson, Inspiration, 443-490; Bückmann, in Zeitsch. +f. luth. Theol. u. Kirche, 1878:216. On miracles in the second century, see Barnard, +Literature of the Second Century, 139-180. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, +167—<q>The apostles were commissioned to speak for Christ till the N. T. Scriptures, his +authoritative voice, were completed. In the apostolate we have a provisional inspiration; +in the N. T. a stereotyped inspiration; the first being endowed with authority <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ad +interim</foreign> to forgive sins, and the second having this authority <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>in perpetuo</foreign>.</q> Dr. Gordon +draws an analogy between coal, which is fossil sunlight, and the New Testament, +which is fossil inspiration. Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 74—<q>The Bible is very free from +the senseless prodigies of oriental mythology. The great prophets, Isaiah, Amos, +Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work no miracles. Jesus' temptation in the wilderness +is a victory of the moral consciousness over the religion of mere physical prodigy.</q> +Trench says that miracles cluster about the <emph>foundation</emph> of the theocratic kingdom +<pb n='129'/><anchor id='Pg129'/> +under Moses and Joshua, and about the <emph>restoration</emph> of that kingdom under Elijah and +Elisha. In the O. T., miracles confute the gods of Egypt under Moses, the Phœnician +Baal under Elijah and Elisha, and the gods of Babylon under Daniel. See Diman, Theistic +Argument, 376, and art.: Miracle, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Miracles generally certify to the truth of doctrine, not directly, but +indirectly; otherwise a new miracle must needs accompany each new +doctrine taught. Miracles primarily and directly certify to the divine commission +and authority of a religious teacher, and therefore warrant acceptance +of his doctrines and obedience to his commands as the doctrines and +commands of God, whether these be communicated at intervals or all +together, orally or in written documents. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The exceptions to the above statement are very few, and are found only in cases +where the whole commission and authority of Christ, and not some fragmentary doctrine, +are involved. Jesus appeals to his miracles as proof of the truth of his teaching +in <emph>Mat. 9:5, 6—<q>Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may +know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, and +take up thy bed, and go unto thy house</q></emph>; <emph>12:28—<q>if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of +God come upon you.</q></emph> So Paul in <emph>Rom. 1:4</emph>, says that Jesus <emph><q>was declared to be the Son of God with +power, ... by the resurrection from the dead.</q></emph> Mair, Christian Evidences, 223, quotes from +Natural Religion, 181—<q>It is said that the theo-philanthropist Larévellière-Lépeaux +once confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success of his attempt to bring +into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of benevolent rationalism which he +had invented to meet the wants of a benevolent age. <q>His propaganda made no +way,</q> he said. <q>What was he to do?</q> he asked. The ex-bishop Talleyrand politely +condoled with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult +than he had imagined, so difficult that he hardly knew what to advise. <q>Still,</q>—so he +went on after a moment's reflection,—<q>there is one plan which you might at least try: +I should recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third day.</q></q> See also +Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 147-167; Farrar, Life of Christ, 1:168-172. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Miracles, therefore, do not stand alone as evidences. Power alone +cannot prove a divine commission. Purity of life and doctrine must go +with the miracles to assure us that a religious teacher has come from God. +The miracles and the doctrine in this manner mutually support each other, +and form parts of one whole. The internal evidence for the Christian +system may have greater power over certain minds and over certain ages +than the external evidence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Pascal's aphorism that <q>doctrines must be judged by miracles, miracles by doctrine,</q> +needs to be supplemented by Mozley's statement that <q>a supernatural fact is the proper +proof of a supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine is not the proper proof +of a supernatural fact.</q> E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 107, would <q>defend miracles, +but would not buttress up Christianity by them.... No amount of miracles +could convince a good man of the divine commission of a known bad man; nor, on the +other hand, could any degree of miraculous power suffice to silence the doubts of an +evil-minded man.... The miracle is a certification only to him who can perceive +its significance.... The Christian church has the resurrection written all over it. +Its very existence is proof of the resurrection. Twelve men could never have founded +the church, if Christ had remained in the tomb. The living church is the burning bush +that is not consumed.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 57—<q>Jesus did not appear after his resurrection +to unbelievers, but to believers only,—which means that this crowning miracle +was meant to confirm an existing faith, not to create one where it did not exist.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Christian Union, July 11, 1891—<q>If the anticipated resurrection of Joseph Smith +were to take place, it would add nothing whatever to the authority of the Mormon +religion.</q> Schurman, Agnosticism and Religion, 57—<q>Miracles are merely the bells +to call primitive peoples to church. Sweet as the music they once made, modern ears +find them jangling and out of tune, and their dissonant notes scare away pious souls +who would fain enter the temple of worship.</q> A new definition of miracle which recognizes +<pb n='130'/><anchor id='Pg130'/> +their possible classification as extraordinary occurrences in nature, yet sees in +all nature the working of the living God, may do much to remove this prejudice. +Bishop of Southampton, Place of Miracle, 53—<q>Miracles alone could not produce conviction. +The Pharisees ascribed them to Beelzebub. Though Jesus had done so many +signs, yet they believed not.... Though miracles were frequently wrought, they +were rarely appealed to as evidence of the truth of the gospel. They are simply signs +of God's presence in his world. By itself a miracle had no evidential force. The only +test for distinguishing divine from Satanic miracles is that of the moral character and +purpose of the worker; and therefore miracles depend for all their force upon a previous +appreciation of the character and personality of Christ (79). The earliest apologists +make no use of miracles. They are of no value except in connection with prophecy. +Miracles <emph>are</emph> the revelation of God, not the <emph>proof</emph> of revelation.</q> <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Supernatural +Religion, 1:23, and Stearns, in New Englander, Jan. 1882:80. See Mozley, Miracles, +15; Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 133; Mill, Logic, 374-382; H. B. Smith, Int. to +Christ. Theology, 167-169; Fisher, in Journ. Christ. Philos., April, 1883:270-283. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Yet the Christian miracles do not lose their value as evidence in the +process of ages. The loftier the structure of Christian life and doctrine the +greater need that its foundation be secure. The authority of Christ as a +teacher of supernatural truth rests upon his miracles, and especially upon +the miracle of his resurrection. That one miracle to which the church +looks back as the source of her life carries with it irresistibly all the other +miracles of the Scripture record; upon it alone we may safely rest the +proof that the Scriptures are an authoritative revelation from God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The miracles of Christ are simple correlates of the Incarnation—proper insignia of +his royalty and divinity. By mere external evidence however we can more easily +prove the resurrection than the incarnation. In our arguments with sceptics, we +should not begin with the ass that spoke to Balaam, or the fish that swallowed Jonah, +but with the resurrection of Christ; that conceded, all other Biblical miracles will seem +only natural preparations, accompaniments, or consequences. G. F. Wright, in Bib. +Sac., 1889:707—<q>The difficulties created by the miraculous character of Christianity +may be compared to those assumed by a builder when great permanence is desired in +the structure erected. It is easier to lay the foundation of a temporary structure +than of one which is to endure for the ages.</q> Pressensé: <q>The empty tomb of Christ +has been the cradle of the church, and if in this foundation of her faith the church has +been mistaken, she must needs lay herself down by the side of the mortal remains, I +say, not of a man, but of a religion.</q> +</p> + +<p> +President Schurman believes the resurrection of Christ to be <q>an obsolete picture of +an eternal truth—the fact of a continued life with God.</q> Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, +102, thinks no consistent union of the gospel accounts of Christ's resurrection +can be attained; apparently doubts a literal and bodily rising; yet traces Christianity +back to an invincible faith in Christ's conquering of death and his continued life. +But why believe the gospels when they speak of the sympathy of Christ, yet disbelieve +them when they speak of his miraculous power? We have no right to trust the narrative +when it gives us Christ's words <emph><q>Weep not</q></emph> to the widow of Nain, (<emph>Luke 7:13</emph>), and +then to distrust it when it tells us of his raising the widow's son. The words <emph><q>Jesus wept</q></emph> +belong inseparably to a story of which <emph><q>Lazarus, come forth!</q></emph> forms a part (<emph>John 11:35, 43</emph>). +It is improbable that the disciples should have believed so stupendous a miracle as +Christ's resurrection, if they had not previously seen other manifestations of miraculous +power on the part of Christ. Christ himself is the great miracle. The conception +of him as the risen and glorified Savior can be explained only by the fact that he did so +rise. E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 109—<q>The Church attests the fact of the resurrection +quite as much as the resurrection attests the divine origin of the church. Resurrection, +as an evidence, depends on the existence of the church which proclaims it.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—by which we mean +his coming forth from the sepulchre in body as well as in spirit—is demonstrated +by evidence as varied and as conclusive as that which proves to us +any single fact of ancient history. Without it Christianity itself is inexplicable, +<pb n='131'/><anchor id='Pg131'/> +as is shown by the failure of all modern rationalistic theories to +account for its rise and progress. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In discussing the evidence of Jesus' resurrection, we are confronted with three main +rationalistic theories: +</p> + +<p> +I. The <hi rend='italic'>Swoon-theory</hi> of Strauss. This holds that Jesus did not really die. The cold +and the spices of the sepulchre revived him. We reply that the blood and water, and +the testimony of the centurion (<emph>Mark 15:45</emph>), proved actual death (see Bib. Sac., April, +1889:228; Forrest, Christ of History and Experience, 137-170). The rolling away of the +stone, and Jesus' power immediately after, are inconsistent with immediately preceding +swoon and suspended animation. How was his life preserved? where did he go? +when did he die? His not dying implies deceit on his own part or on that of his +disciples. +</p> + +<p> +II. The <hi rend='italic'>Spirit-theory</hi> of Keim. Jesus really died, but only his spirit appeared. The +spirit of Jesus gave the disciples a sign of his continued life, a telegram from heaven. +But we reply that the telegram was untrue, for it asserted that his body had risen from +the tomb. The tomb was empty and the linen cloths showed an orderly departure. +Jesus himself denied that he was a bodiless spirit: <emph><q>a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me +having</q> (Luke 24:39)</emph>. Did <emph><q>his flesh see corruption</q> (Acts 2:31)</emph>? Was the penitent thief raised +from the dead as much as he? Godet, Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith, lect. i: +A dilemma for those who deny the fact of Christ's resurrection: Either his body +remained in the hands of his disciples, or it was given up to the Jews. If the disciples +retained it, they were impostors: but this is not maintained by modern rationalists. If +the Jews retained it, why did they not produce it as conclusive evidence against the +disciples? +</p> + +<p> +III. The <hi rend='italic'>Vision-theory</hi> of Renan. Jesus died, and there was no objective appearance +even of his spirit. Mary Magdalene was the victim of subjective hallucination, and +her hallucination became contagious. This was natural because the Jews expected +that the Messiah would work miracles and would rise from the dead. We reply that +the disciples did not expect Jesus' resurrection. The women went to the sepulchre, +not to see a risen Redeemer, but to embalm a dead body. Thomas and those at +Emmaus had given up all hope. Four hundred years had passed since the days of +miracles; John the Baptist <emph><q>did no miracle</q> (John 10:41)</emph>; the Sadducees said <emph><q>there is no resurrection</q> +(Mat. 22:23)</emph>. There were thirteen different appearances, to: 1. the Magdalen; 2. +other women; 3. Peter; 4. Emmaus; 5. the Twelve; 6. the Twelve after eight days; +7. Galilee seashore; 8. Galilee mountain; 9. Galilee five hundred; 10. James; 11. ascension +at Bethany; 12. Stephen; 13. Paul on way to Damascus. Paul describes Christ's appearance +to him as something objective, and he implies that Christ's previous appearances +to others were objective also: <emph><q rend='pre'>last of all</q></emph> [these bodily appearances], ... <emph><q rend='post'>he appeared to me also</q> +(1 Cor. 15:8)</emph>. Bruce, Apologetics, 396—<q>Paul's interest and intention in classing the two +together was to level his own vision [of Christ] up to the objectivity of the early Christophanies. +He believed that the eleven, that Peter in particular, had seen the risen Christ +with the eye of the body, and he meant to claim for himself a vision of the same kind.</q> +Paul's was a sane, strong nature. Subjective visions do not transform human lives; +the resurrection moulded the apostles; they did not create the resurrection (see Gore, +Incarnation, 76). These appearances soon ceased, unlike the law of hallucinations, +which increase in frequency and intensity. It is impossible to explain the ordinances, +the Lord's day, or Christianity itself, if Jesus did not rise from the dead. +</p> + +<p> +The resurrection of our Lord teaches three important lessons: (1) It showed that his +work of atonement was completed and was stamped with the divine approval; (2) It +showed him to be Lord of all and gave the one sufficient external proof of Christianity; +(3) It furnished the ground and pledge of our own resurrection, and thus <emph><q>brought life and +immortality to light</q> (2 Tim. 1:10)</emph>. It must be remembered that the resurrection was the one +sign upon which Jesus himself staked his claims—<emph><q>the sign of Jonah</q> (Luke 11:29)</emph>; and that +the resurrection is proof, not simply of God's power, but of Christ's own power: <emph>John +10:18—<q>I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again</q></emph>; <emph>2:19—<q>Destroy this temple, and in +three days I will raise it up</q></emph>.... <emph>21—<q>he spake of the temple of his body.</q></emph> See Alexander, Christ +and Christianity, 9, 158-224, 302; Mill, Theism, 216; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 56; +Boston Lectures, 203-239; Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, 448-503; Row, +Bampton Lectures, 1887:358-423; Hutton, Essays, 1:119; Schaff, in Princeton Rev., May, +1880; 411-419; Fisher, Christian Evidences, 41-46, 82-85; West, in Defence and Conf. of +Faith, 80-129; also special works on the Resurrection of our Lord, by Milligan, Morrison, +Kennedy, J. Baldwin Brown. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='132'/><anchor id='Pg132'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>6. Counterfeit Miracles.</head> + +<p> +Since only an act directly wrought by God can properly be called a +miracle, it follows that surprising events brought about by evil spirits or +by men, through the use of natural agencies beyond our knowledge, are +not entitled to this appellation. The Scriptures recognize the existence of +such, but denominate them <q>lying wonders</q> (2 Thess. 2:9). +</p> + +<p> +These counterfeit miracles in various ages argue that the belief in miracles +is natural to the race, and that somewhere there must exist the true. They +serve to show that not all supernatural occurrences are divine, and to impress +upon us the necessity of careful examination before we accept them as +divine. +</p> + +<p> +False miracles may commonly be distinguished from the true by (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) their +accompaniments of immoral conduct or of doctrine contradictory to truth +already revealed—as in modern spiritualism; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) their internal characteristics +of inanity and extravagance—as in the liquefaction of the blood of +St. Januarius, or the miracles of the Apocryphal New Testament; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the +insufficiency of the object which they are designed to further—as in the +case of Apollonius of Tyana, or of the miracles said to accompany the publication +of the doctrines of the immaculate conception and of the papal +infallibility; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) their lack of substantiating evidence—as in mediæval +miracles, so seldom attested by contemporary and disinterested witnesses; +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) their denial or undervaluing of God's previous revelation of himself in +nature—as shown by the neglect of ordinary means, in the cases of Faith-cure +and of so-called Christian Science. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Only what is valuable is counterfeited. False miracles presuppose the true. Fisher, +Nature and Method of Revelation, 283—<q>The miracles of Jesus originated faith in him, +while mediæval miracles follow established faith. The testimony of the apostles was +given in the face of incredulous Sadducees. They were ridiculed and maltreated on +account of it. It was no time for devout dreams and the invention of romances.</q> +The blood of St. Januarius at Naples is said to be contained in a vial, one side of which +is of thick glass, while the other side is of thin. A similar miracle was wrought at +Hales in Gloucestershire. St. Alban, the first martyr of Britain, after his head is cut +off, carries it about in his hand. In Ireland the place is shown where St. Patrick in the +fifth century drove all the toads and snakes over a precipice into the nether regions. +The legend however did not become current until some hundreds of years after the +saint's bones had crumbled to dust at Saul, near Downpatrick (see Hemphill, Literature +of the Second Century, 180-182). Compare the story of the book of Tobit (6-8), +which relates the expulsion of a demon by smoke from the burning heart and liver of a +fish caught in the Tigris, and the story of the Apocryphal New Testament (I, Infancy), +which tells of the expulsion of Satan in the form of a mad dog from Judas by the +child Jesus. On counterfeit miracles in general, see Mozley, Miracles, 15, 161; F. W. +Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 72; A. S. Farrar, Science and Theology, 208; +Tholuck, Vermischte Schriften, 1:27; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:630; Presb. Rev., 1881:687-719. +</p> + +<p> +Some modern writers have maintained that the gift of miracles still remains in the +church. Bengel: <q>The reason why <emph>many</emph> miracles are not now wrought is not so +much because <emph>faith</emph> is established, as because <emph>unbelief</emph> reigns.</q> Christlieb: <q>It is the +want of faith in our age which is the greatest hindrance to the stronger and more +marked appearance of that miraculous power which is working here and there in quiet +concealment. Unbelief is the final and most important reason for the retrogression of +miracles.</q> Edward Irving, Works, 5:464—<q>Sickness is sin apparent in the body, the +presentiment of death, the forerunner of corruption. Now, as Christ came to destroy +death, and will yet redeem the body from the bondage of corruption, if the church is +to have a first fruits or earnest of this power, it must be by receiving power over diseases +<pb n='133'/><anchor id='Pg133'/> +that are the first fruits and earnest of death.</q> Dr. A. J. Gordon, in his Ministry +of Healing, held to this view. See also Boys, Proofs of the Miraculous in the Experience +of the Church; Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 446-492; Review of Gordon, +by Vincent, in Presb. Rev., 1883:473-502; Review of Vincent, in Presb. Rev., 1884:49-79. +</p> + +<p> +In reply to the advocates of faith-cure in general, we would grant that nature is plastic +in God's hand; that he can work miracle when and where it pleases him; and that +he has given promises which, with certain Scriptural and rational limitations, encourage +believing prayer for healing in cases of sickness. But we incline to the belief that +in these later ages God answers such prayer, not by miracle, but by special providence, +and by gifts of courage, faith and will, thus acting by his Spirit directly upon the soul and +only indirectly upon the body. The laws of nature are generic volitions of God, and to +ignore them and disuse means is presumption and disrespect to God himself. The +Scripture promise to faith is always expressly or impliedly conditioned upon our use +of means: we are to work out our own salvation, for the very reason that it is God who +works in us; it is vain for the drowning man to pray, so long as he refuses to lay hold +of the rope that is thrown to him. Medicines and physicians are the rope thrown to us +by God; we cannot expect miraculous help, while we neglect the help God has already +given us; to refuse this help is practically to deny Christ's revelation in nature. Why +not live without eating, as well as recover from sickness without medicine? Faith-feeding +is quite as rational as faith-healing. To except cases of disease from this general rule +as to the use of means has no warrant either in reason or in Scripture. The atonement +has purchased complete salvation, and some day salvation shall be ours. But death and +depravity still remain, not as penalty, but as chastisement. So disease remains also. +Hospitals for Incurables, and the deaths even of advocates of faith-cure, show that they +too are compelled to recognize some limit to the application of the New Testament +promise. +</p> + +<p> +In view of the preceding discussion we must regard the so-called Christian Science as +neither Christian nor scientific. Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy denies the authority of all +that part of revelation which God has made to man in nature, and holds that the +laws of nature may be disregarded with impunity by those who have proper faith; see +G. F. Wright, in Bib. Sac., April, 1899:375. Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts: <q>One +of the errors of Christian Science is its neglect of accumulated knowledge, of the +fund of information stored up for these Christian centuries. That knowledge is just +as much God's gift as is the knowledge obtained from direct revelation. In rejecting +accumulated knowledge and professional skill, Christian Science rejects the gift of +God.</q> Most of the professed cures of Christian Science are explicable by the influence +of the mind upon the body, through hypnosis or suggestion; (see A. A. Bennett, in +Watchman, Feb. 13, 1903). Mental disturbance may make the mother's milk a poison to +the child; mental excitement is a common cause of indigestion; mental depression +induces bowel disorders; depressed mental and moral conditions render a person more +susceptible to grippe, pneumonia, typhoid fever. Reading the account of an accident +in which the body is torn or maimed, we ourselves feel pain in the same spot; when the +child's hand is crushed, the mother's hand, though at a distance, becomes swollen; the +mediæval <foreign rend='italic'>stigmata</foreign> probably resulted from continuous brooding upon the sufferings of +Christ (see Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 676-690). +</p> + +<p> +But mental states may help as well as harm the body. Mental expectancy facilitates +cure in cases of sickness. The physician helps the patient by inspiring hope and courage. +Imagination works wonders, especially in the case of nervous disorders. The +diseases said to be cured by Christian Science are commonly of this sort. In every age +fakirs, mesmerists, and quacks have availed themselves of these underlying mental +forces. By inducing expectancy, imparting courage, rousing the paralyzed will, they +have indirectly caused bodily changes which have been mistaken for miracle. Tacitus +tells us of the healing of a blind man by the Emperor Vespasian. Undoubted cures have +been wrought by the royal touch in England. Since such wonders have been performed +by Indian medicine-men, we cannot regard them as having any specific Christian +character, and when, as in the present case, we find them used to aid in the spread +of false doctrine with regard to sin, Christ, atonement, and the church, we must class +them with the <emph><q>lying wonders</q></emph> of which we are warned in <emph>2 Thess. 2:9</emph>. See Harris, Philosophical +Basis of Theism, 381-386; Buckley, Faith-Healing, and in Century Magazine, +June, 1886:221-236; Bruce, Miraculous Element in Gospels, lecture 8; Andover Review, +1887:249-264. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='134'/><anchor id='Pg134'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Prophecy as Attesting a Divine Revelation.</head> + +<p> +We here consider prophecy in its narrow sense of mere prediction, +reserving to a subsequent chapter the consideration of prophecy as interpretation +of the divine will in general. +</p> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Definition.</hi> Prophecy is the foretelling of future events by virtue of +direct communication from God—a foretelling, therefore, which, though +not contravening any laws of the human mind, those laws, if fully known, +would not, without this agency of God, be sufficient to explain. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In discussing the subject of prophecy, we are met at the outset by the contention +that there is not, and never has been, any real foretelling of future events beyond that +which is possible to natural prescience. This is the view of Kuenen, Prophets and +Prophecy in Israel. Pfleiderer, Philos. Relig., 2:42, denies any direct prediction. Prophecy +in Israel, he intimates, was simply the consciousness of God's righteousness, proclaiming +its ideals of the future, and declaring that the will of God is the moral ideal +of the good and the law of the world's history, so that the fates of nations are conditioned +by their bearing toward this moral purpose of God: <q>The fundamental error +of the vulgar apologetics is that it confounds prophecy with heathen soothsaying—national +salvation without character.</q> W. Robertson Smith, in Encyc. Britannica, 19:821, +tells us that <q>detailed prediction occupies a very secondary place in the writings of +the prophets; or rather indeed what seem to be predictions in detail are usually only +free poetical illustrations of historical principles, which neither received nor demanded +exact fulfilment.</q> +</p> + +<p> +As in the case of miracles, our faith in an immanent God, who is none other than the +Logos or larger Christ, gives us a point of view from which we may reconcile the contentions +of the naturalists and supernaturalists. Prophecy is an immediate act of +God; but, since all natural genius is also due to God's energizing, we do not need to +deny the employment of man's natural gifts in prophecy. The instances of telepathy, +presentiment, and second sight which the Society for Psychical Research has demonstrated +to be facts show that prediction, in the history of divine revelation, may be +only an intensification, under the extraordinary impulse of the divine Spirit, of a power +that is in some degree latent in all men. The author of every great work of creative +imagination knows that a higher power than his own has possessed him. In all human +reason there is a natural activity of the divine Reason or Logos, and he is <emph><q>the light which +lighteth every man</q> (John 1:9)</emph>. So there is a natural activity of the Holy Spirit, and he who +completes the circle of the divine consciousness completes also the circle of human +consciousness, gives self-hood to every soul, makes available to man the natural as well +as the spiritual gifts of Christ; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> John 16:14—<q>he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.</q></emph> +The same Spirit who in the beginning <emph><q>brooded over the face of the waters</q> (Gen. 1:2)</emph> also broods +over humanity, and it is he who, according to Christ's promise, was to <emph><q>declare unto you the +things that are to come</q> (John 16:13)</emph>. The gift of prophecy may have its natural side, like the +gift of miracles, yet may be finally explicable only as the result of an extraordinary +working of that Spirit of Christ who to some degree manifests himself in the reason +and conscience of every man; <emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 1 Pet 1:11—<q>searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit +of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that +should follow them.</q></emph> See Myers, Human Personality, 2:262-292. +</p> + +<p> +A. B. Davidson, in his article on Prophecy and Prophets, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, +4:120, 121, gives little weight to this view that prophecy is based on a natural power of +the human mind: <q>The arguments by which Giesebrecht, Berufsgabung, 13 ff., supports +the theory of a <q>faculty of presentiment</q> have little cogency. This faculty is +supposed to reveal itself particularly on the approach of death (<emph>Gen. 28</emph> and <emph>49</emph>). The contemporaries +of most great religious personages have attributed to them a prophetic +gift. The answer of John Knox to those who credited him with such a gift is worth +reading: <q>My assurances are not marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane +prophecy. But <emph>first</emph>, the plain truth of God's word; <emph>second</emph>, the invincible justice +of the everlasting God; and <emph>third</emph>, the ordinary course of his punishments and plagues +from the beginning, are my assurances and grounds.</q></q> While Davidson grants the fulfilment +of certain specific predictions of Scripture, to be hereafter mentioned, he holds +that <q>such presentiments as we can observe to be authentic are chiefly products of the +<pb n='135'/><anchor id='Pg135'/> +conscience or moral reason. True prophecy is based on moral grounds. Everywhere +the menacing future is connected with the evil past by <emph><q>therefore</q> (Micah 3:12; Is. 5:13; Amos +1:2)</emph>.</q> We hold with Davidson to the moral element in prophecy, but we also recognize +a power in normal humanity which he would minimize or deny. We claim that +the human mind even in its ordinary and secular working gives occasional signs of +transcending the limitations of the present. Believing in the continual activity of +the divine Reason in the reason of man, we have no need to doubt the possibility of +an extraordinary insight into the future, and such insight is needed at the great epochs +of religious history. Expositor's Gk. Test., 2:34—<q>Savonarola foretold as early as +1496 the capture of Rome, which happened in 1527, and he did this not only in general +terms but in detail; his words were realized to the letter when the sacred churches +of St. Peter and St. Paul became, as the prophet foretold, stables for the conquerors' +horses.</q> On the general subject, see Payne-Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for +Christ; Alexander, Christ and Christianity; Farrar, Science and Theology, 106; Newton +on Prophecy; Fairbairn on Prophecy. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Relation of Prophecy to Miracles.</hi> Miracles are attestations of +revelation proceeding from divine power; prophecy is an attestation of revelation +proceeding from divine knowledge. Only God can know the contingencies +of the future. The possibility and probability of prophecy may +be argued upon the same grounds upon which we argue the possibility and +probability of miracles. As an evidence of divine revelation, however, +prophecy possesses two advantages over miracles, namely: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The proof, +in the case of prophecy, is not derived from ancient testimony, but is under +our eyes. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The evidence of miracles cannot become stronger, whereas +every new fulfilment adds to the argument from prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>Requirements in Prophecy, considered as an Evidence of Revelation.</hi> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The utterance must be distant from the event. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Nothing +must exist to suggest the event to merely natural prescience. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The +utterance must be free from ambiguity. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Yet it must not be so precise +as to secure its own fulfilment. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) It must be followed in due time +by the event predicted. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Hume: <q>All prophecies are real miracles, and only as such can be admitted as proof +of any revelation.</q> See Wardlaw, Syst. Theol., 1:347. (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Hundreds of years intervened +between certain of the O. T. predictions and their fulfilment. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Stanley +instances the natural sagacity of Burke, which enabled him to predict the French Revolution. +But Burke also predicted in 1793 that France would be partitioned like Poland +among a confederacy of hostile powers. Canning predicted that South American +colonies would grow up as the United States had grown. D'Israeli predicted that our +Southern Confederacy would become an independent nation. Ingersoll predicted that +within ten years there would be two theatres for one church. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Illustrate ambiguous +prophecies by the Delphic oracle to Crœsus: <q>Crossing the river, thou destroyest +a great nation</q>—whether his own or his enemy's the oracle left undetermined. <q>Ibis +et redibis nunquam peribis in bello.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Strauss held that O. T. prophecy itself +determined either the events or the narratives of the gospels. See Greg, Creed of +Christendom, chap. 4. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Cardan, the Italian mathematician, predicted the day and +hour of his own death, and committed suicide at the proper time to prove the prediction +true. Jehovah makes the fulfilment of his predictions the proof of his deity in +the controversy with false gods: <emph>Is. 41:23—<q>Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may +know that ye are gods</q></emph>; <emph>42:9—<q>Behold, the former things are come to pass and new things do I declare: before +they spring forth I tell you of them.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>General Features of Prophecy in the Scriptures.</hi> (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Its large +amount—occupying a great portion of the Bible, and extending over many +hundred years. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Its ethical and religious nature—the events of the +future being regarded as outgrowths and results of men's present attitude +<pb n='136'/><anchor id='Pg136'/> +toward God. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Its unity in diversity—finding its central point in +Christ the true servant of God and deliverer of his people. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Its actual +fulfilment as regards many of its predictions—while seeming non-fulfilments +are explicable from its figurative and conditional nature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +A. B. Davidson, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, 4:125, has suggested reasons for the +apparent non-fulfilment of certain predictions. Prophecy is poetical and figurative; +its details are not to be pressed; they are only drapery, needed for the expression of the +idea. In <emph>Isa. 13:16—<q>Their infants shall be dashed in pieces ... and their wives ravished</q></emph>—the prophet +gives an ideal picture of the sack of a city; these things did not actually happen, but +Cyrus entered Babylon <emph><q>in peace.</q></emph> Yet the essential truth remained that the city fell +into the enemy's hands. The prediction of Ezekiel with regard to Tyre, <emph>Ez. 26:7-14</emph>, is recognized +in <emph>Ez. 29:17-20</emph> as having been fulfilled not in its details but in its essence—the +actual event having been the breaking of the power of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. <emph>Is. 17:1—<q>Behold, +Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap</q></emph>—must be interpreted +as predicting the blotting out of its dominion, since Damascus has probably never +ceased to be a city. The conditional nature of prophecy explains other seeming non-fulfilments. +Predictions were often threats, which might be revoked upon repentance. +<emph>Jer. 26:13—<q>amend your ways ... and the Lord will repent him of the evil which he hath pronounced against +you.</q></emph> <emph>Jonah 3:4—<q>Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown ...</q></emph> <emph>10—God saw their works, that they +turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not</emph>; +<emph><hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Jer. 18:8</emph>; <emph>26:19</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Instances of actual fulfilment of prophecy are found, according to Davidson, in Samuel's +prediction of some things that would happen to Saul, which the history declares +did happen (<emph>1 Sam. 1</emph> and <emph>10</emph>). Jeremiah predicted the death of Hananiah within the year, +which took place (<emph>Jer. 28</emph>). Micaiah predicted the defeat and death of Ahab at Ramoth-Gilead +(<emph>1 Kings 22</emph>). Isaiah predicted the failure of the northern coalition to subdue Jerusalem +(<emph>Is. 7</emph>); the overthrow in two or three years of Damascus and Northern Israel +before the Assyrians (<emph>Is. 8 and 17</emph>); the failure of Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem, and +the melting away of his army (<emph>Is. 37:34-37</emph>). <q>And in general, apart from details, the +main predictions of the prophets regarding Israel and the nations were verified in history, +for example, <emph>Amos 1</emph> and <emph>2</emph>. The chief predictions of the prophets relate to the +imminent downfall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; to what lies beyond this, +namely, the restoration of the kingdom of God; and to the state of the people in their +condition of final felicity.</q> For predictions of the exile and the return of Israel, see +especially <emph>Amos 9:9—<q rend='pre'>For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as +grain is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least kernel fall upon the earth....</q></emph> <emph>14—<q rend='post'>And I will bring again the +captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them.</q></emph> Even if we accept the +theory of composite authorship of the book of Isaiah, we still have a foretelling of the +sending back of the Jews from Babylon, and a designation of Cyrus as God's agent, in +<emph>Is. 44:28—<q>that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, +She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid</q></emph>; see George Adam Smith, in Hastings' +Bible Dictionary, 2:493. Frederick the Great said to his chaplain: <q>Give me in +one word a proof of the divine origin of the Bible</q>; and the chaplain well replied: +<q>The Jews, your Majesty.</q> In the case of the Jews we have even now the unique phenomena +of a people without a land, and a land without a people,—yet both these were +predicted centuries before the event. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +5. <hi rend='italic'>Messianic Prophecy in general.</hi> (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Direct predictions of events—as +in Old Testament prophecies of Christ's birth, suffering and subsequent +glory. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) General prophecy of the Kingdom in the Old Testament, +and of its gradual triumph. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Historical types in a nation and +in individuals—as Jonah and David. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Prefigurations of the future +in rites and ordinances—as in sacrifice, circumcision, and the passover. +</p> + +<p> +6. <hi rend='italic'>Special Prophecies uttered by Christ.</hi> (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) As to his own death +and resurrection. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) As to events occurring between his death and the +destruction of Jerusalem (multitudes of impostors; wars and rumors of +wars; famine and pestilence). (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) As to the destruction of Jerusalem +<pb n='137'/><anchor id='Pg137'/> +and the Jewish polity (Jerusalem compassed with armies; abomination of +desolation in the holy place; flight of Christians; misery; massacre; dispersion). +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) As to the world-wide diffusion of his gospel (the Bible +already the most widely circulated book in the world). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The most important feature in prophecy is its Messianic element; see <emph>Luke 24:27—<q>beginning +from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning +himself</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 10:43—<q>to him bear all the prophets witness</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 19:10—<q>the testimony of Jesus is the +spirit of prophecy.</q></emph> Types are intended resemblances, designed prefigurations; for example, +Israel is a type of the Christian church; outside nations are types of the hostile +world; Jonah and David are types of Christ. The typical nature of Israel rests upon +the deeper fact of the community of life. As the life of God the Logos lies at the basis +of universal humanity and interpenetrates it in every part, so out of this universal +humanity grows Israel in general; out of Israel as a nation springs the spiritual Israel, +and out of spiritual Israel Christ according to the flesh,—the upward rising pyramid +finds its apex and culmination in him. Hence the predictions with regard to <emph><q>the servant +of Jehovah</q> (Is. 42:1-7)</emph>, and <emph><q>the Messiah</q> (Is. 61:1; John 1:41)</emph>, have partial fulfilment in Israel, +but perfect fulfilment only in Christ; so Delitzsch, Oehler, and Cheyne on Isaiah, 2:253. +Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 59—<q>If humanity were not potentially and in some degree +Immanuel, God with us, there would never have issued from its bosom he who bore +and revealed this blessed name.</q> Gardiner, O. T. and N. T. in their Mutual Relations, +170-194. +</p> + +<p> +In the O. T., Jehovah is the Redeemer of his people. He works through judges, +prophets, kings, but he himself remains the Savior; <q>it is only the Divine in them that +saves</q>; <emph><q>Salvation is of Jehovah</q> (Jonah 2:9)</emph>. Jehovah is manifested in the Davidic King +under the monarchy; in Israel, the Servant of the Lord, during the exile; and in the +Messiah, or Anointed One, in the post-exilian period. Because of its conscious identification +with Jehovah, Israel is always a forward-looking people. Each new judge, +king, prophet is regarded as heralding the coming reign of righteousness and peace. +These earthly deliverers are saluted with rapturous expectation; the prophets express +this expectation in terms that transcend the possibilities of the present; and, when this +expectation fails to be fully realized, the Messianic hope is simply transferred to a +larger future. Each separate prophecy has its drapery furnished by the prophet's +immediate surroundings, and finds its occasion in some event of contemporaneous history. +But by degrees it becomes evident that only an ideal and perfect King and Savior +can fill out the requirements of prophecy. Only when Christ appears, does the +real meaning of the various Old Testament predictions become manifest. Only then +are men able to combine the seemingly inconsistent prophecies of a priest who is also a +king (<emph>Psalm 110</emph>), and of a royal but at the same time a suffering Messiah (<emph>Isaiah 53</emph>). It +is not enough for us to ask what the prophet himself meant, or what his earliest hearers +understood, by his prophecy. This is to regard prophecy as having only a single, +and that a human, author. With the spirit of man coöperated the Spirit of Christ, the +Holy Spirit (<emph>1 Pet. 1:11—<q>the Spirit of Christ which was in them</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 1:21—<q>no prophecy ever came by +the will of man; but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph>). All prophecy has a twofold +authorship, human and divine; the same Christ who spoke through the prophets +brought about the fulfilment of their words. +</p> + +<p> +It is no wonder that he who through the prophets uttered predictions with regard to +himself should, when he became incarnate, be the prophet <foreign rend='italic'>par excellence</foreign> (<emph>Deut. 18:15</emph>; <emph>Acts +3:22—<q>Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up from among your brethren, like unto me; to him +shall ye hearken</q></emph>). In the predictions of Jesus we find the proper key to the interpretation +of prophecy in general, and the evidence that while no one of the three theories—the +preterist, the continuist, the futurist—furnishes an exhaustive explanation, each +one of these has its element of truth. Our Lord made the fulfilment of the prediction +of his own resurrection a test of his divine commission: it was <emph><q>the sign of Jonah the prophet</q> +(Mat. 12:39)</emph>. He promised that his disciples should have prophetic gifts: <emph>John 15:15—<q>No +longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for +all things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you</q></emph>; <emph>16:13—<q>the Spirit of truth ... he +shall declare unto you the things that are to come.</q></emph> Agabus predicted the famine and Paul's +imprisonment (<emph>Acts 11:28</emph>; <emph>21:10</emph>); Paul predicted heresies (<emph>Acts 20:29, 30</emph>), shipwreck (<emph>Acts +27:10, 21-26</emph>), <emph><q>the man of sin</q> (2 Thess. 2:3)</emph>, Christ's second coming, and the resurrection of +the saints (<emph>1 Thess. 4:15-17</emph>). +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='138'/><anchor id='Pg138'/> + +<p>7. On the double sense of Prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Certain prophecies apparently contain a fulness of meaning which +is not exhausted by the event to which they most obviously and literally +refer. A prophecy which had a partial fulfilment at a time not remote +from its utterance, may find its chief fulfilment in an event far distant. +Since the principles of God's administration find ever recurring and ever +enlarging illustration in history, prophecies which have already had a +partial fulfilment may have whole cycles of fulfilment yet before them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In prophecy there is an absence of perspective; as in Japanese pictures the near and +the far appear equally distant; as in dissolving views, the immediate future melts into +a future immeasurably far away. The candle that shines through a narrow aperture +sends out its light through an ever-increasing area; sections of the triangle correspond +to each other, but the more distant are far greater than the near. The châlet on the +mountain-side may turn out to be only a black cat on the woodpile, or a speck upon the +window pane. <q>A hill which appears to rise close behind another is found on nearer +approach to have receded a great way from it.</q> The painter, by foreshortening, brings +together things or parts that are relatively distant from each other. The prophet is a +painter whose foreshortenings are supernatural; he seems freed from the law of space +and time, and, rapt into the timelessness of God, he views the events of history <q>sub +specie eternitatis.</q> Prophecy was the sketching of an outline-map. Even the prophet +could not fill up the outline. The absence of perspective in prophecy may account +for Paul's being misunderstood by the Thessalonians, and for the necessity of his explanations +in <emph>2 Thess. 2:1, 2</emph>. In <emph>Isaiah 10</emph> and <emph>11</emph>, the fall of Lebanon (the Assyrian) is immediately +connected with the rise of the Branch (Christ); in <emph>Jeremiah 51:41</emph>, the first capture +and the complete destruction of Babylon are connected with each other, without notice +of the interval of a thousand years between them. +</p> + +<p> +Instances of the double sense of prophecy may be found in <emph>Is. 7:14-16</emph>; <emph>9:6, 7—<q>a virgin +shall conceive and bear a son, ... unto us a son is given</q></emph>—compared with <emph>Mat. 1:22, 23</emph>, where the +prophecy is applied to Christ (see Meyer, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>); <emph>Hos. 11:1—<q>I ... called my son out of +Egypt</q></emph>—referring originally to the calling of the nation out of Egypt—is in <emph>Mat. 2:15</emph> +referred to Christ, who embodied and consummated the mission of Israel; <emph>Psalm 118:22, +23—<q>The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner</q></emph>—which primarily referred +to the Jewish nation, conquered, carried away, and flung aside as of no use, but divinely +destined to a future of importance and grandeur, is in <emph>Mat. 21:42</emph> referred by Jesus to +himself, as the true embodiment of Israel. William Arnold Stevens, on The Man of +Sin, in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1889:328-360—As in <emph>Daniel 11:36</emph>, the great enemy of the +faith, who <emph><q>shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god,</q></emph> is the Syrian King, Antiochus +Epiphanes, so <emph><q>the man of lawlessness</q></emph> described by Paul in <emph>2 Thess. 2:3</emph> is the corrupt and +impious Judaism of the apostolic age. This had its seat in the temple of God, but was +doomed to destruction when the Lord should come at the fall of Jerusalem. But +even this second fulfilment of the prophecy does not preclude a future and final fulfilment. +Broadus on Mat., page 480—In <emph>Isaiah 41:8</emph> to <emph>chapter 53</emph>, the predictions with regard +to <emph><q>the servant of Jehovah</q></emph> make a gradual transition from Israel to the Messiah, the former +alone being seen in <emph>41:8</emph>, the Messiah also appearing in <emph>42:1 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi></emph>, and Israel quite +sinking out of sight in <emph>chapter 53</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +The most marked illustration of the double sense of prophecy however is to be found +in <emph>Matthew 24</emph> and <emph>25</emph>, especially <emph>24:34</emph> and <emph>25:31</emph>, where Christ's prophecy of the destruction +of Jerusalem passes into a prophecy of the end of the world. Adamson, The Mind +in Christ, 183—<q>To him history was the robe of God, and therefore a constant repetition +of positions really similar, kaleidoscopic combining of a few truths, as the facts +varied in which they were to be embodied.</q> A. J. Gordon: <q>Prophecy has no sooner +become history, than history in turn becomes prophecy.</q> Lord Bacon: <q>Divine prophecies +have springing and germinant accomplishment through many ages, though the +height or fulness of them may refer to some one age.</q> In a similar manner there is +a manifoldness of meaning in Dante's Divine Comedy. C. E. Norton, Inferno, xvi—<q>The +narrative of the poet's spiritual journey is so vivid and consistent that it has all +the reality of an account of an actual experience; but within and beneath runs a stream +of allegory not less consistent and hardly less continuous than the narrative itself.</q> +A. H. Strong, The Great Poets and their Theology, 116—<q>Dante himself has told us that +<pb n='139'/><anchor id='Pg139'/> +there are four separate senses which he intends his story to convey. There are the literal, +the allegorical, the moral, and the analogical. In <emph>Psalm 114:1</emph> we have the words, +<emph><q>When Israel went forth out of Egypt.</q></emph> This, says the poet, may be taken literally, of the actual +deliverance of God's ancient people; or allegorically, of the redemption of the world +through Christ; or morally, of the rescue of the sinner from the bondage of his sin; or +anagogically, of the passage of both soul and body from the lower life of earth to the +higher life of heaven. So from Scripture Dante illustrates the method of his poem.</q> +See further, our treatment of Eschatology. See also Dr. Arnold of Rugby, Sermons on +the Interpretation of Scripture, Appendix A, pages 441-454; Aids to Faith, 449-462; +Smith's Bible Dict., 4:2727. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, 4:662. Gardiner, +O. T. and N. T., 262-274, denies double sense, but affirms manifold applications of +a single sense. Broadus, on <emph>Mat. 24:1</emph>, denies double sense, but affirms the use of types. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The prophet was not always aware of the meaning of his own prophecies +(1 Pet. 1:11). It is enough to constitute his prophecies a proof of +divine revelation, if it can be shown that the correspondences between +them and the actual events are such as to indicate divine wisdom and purpose +in the giving of them—in other words, it is enough if the inspiring +Spirit knew their meaning, even though the inspired prophet did not. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is not inconsistent with this view, but rather confirms it, that the near event, and +not the distant fulfilment, was often chiefly, if not exclusively, in the mind of the prophet +when he wrote. Scripture declares that the prophets did not always understand +their own predictions: <emph>1 Pet. 1:11—<q>searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ +which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow +them.</q></emph> Emerson: <q>Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he +knew.</q> Keble: <q>As little children lisp and tell of heaven, So thoughts beyond their +thoughts to those high bards were given.</q> Westcott: Preface to Com. on Hebrews, +vi—<q>No one would limit the teaching of a poet's words to that which was definitely +present to his mind. Still less can we suppose that he who is inspired to give a message +of God to all ages sees himself the completeness of the truth which all life serves +to illuminate.</q> Alexander McLaren: <q>Peter teaches that Jewish prophets foretold the +events of Christ's life and especially his sufferings; that they did so as organs of God's +Spirit; that they were so completely organs of a higher voice that they did not understand +the significance of their own words, but were wiser than they knew and had to +search what were the date and the characteristics of the strange things which they +foretold; and that by further revelation they learned that <emph><q>the vision is yet for many days</q> (Is. +24:22; Dan. 10:14)</emph>. If Peter was right in his conception of the nature of Messianic prophecy, +a good many learned men of to-day are wrong.</q> Matthew Arnold, Literature and +Dogma: <q>Might not the prophetic ideals be poetic dreams, and the correspondence +between them and the life of Jesus, so far as real, only a curious historical phenomenon?</q> +Bruce, Apologetics, 359, replies: <q>Such scepticism is possible only to those +who have no faith in a living God who works out purposes in history.</q> It is comparable +only to the unbelief of the materialist who regards the physical constitution of +the universe as explicable by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +8. <hi rend='italic'>Purpose of Prophecy—so far as it is yet unfulfilled.</hi> (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Not to +enable us to map out the details of the future; but rather (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) To give general +assurance of God's power and foreseeing wisdom, and of the certainty +of his triumph; and (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) To furnish, after fulfilment, the proof that God +saw the end from the beginning. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Dan. 12:8, 9—<q>And I heard, but I understood not; then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the issue of these things? +And he said, Go thy way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed till the time of the end</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 1:19</emph>—prophecy +is <emph><q>a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn</q></emph>—not until day dawns can distant +objects be seen; <emph>20—<q>no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation</q></emph>—only God, by the event, +can interpret it. Sir Isaac Newton: <q>God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men's +curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they +might be interpreted by the event, and his own providence, not the interpreter's, be +thereby manifested to the world.</q> Alexander McLaren: <q>Great tracts of Scripture are +dark to us till life explains them, and then they come on us with the force of a new +<pb n='140'/><anchor id='Pg140'/> +revelation, like the messages which of old were sent by a strip of parchment coiled +upon a bâton and then written upon, and which were unintelligible unless the receiver +had a corresponding bâton to wrap them round.</q> A. H. Strong, The Great Poets and +their Theology, 23—<q>Archilochus, a poet of about 700 B. C., speaks of <q>a grievous <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>scytale</foreign></q>—the +<foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>scytale</foreign> being the staff on which a strip of leather for writing purposes was +rolled slantwise, so that the message inscribed upon the strip could not be read until the +leather was rolled again upon another staff of the same size; since only the writer and +the receiver possessed staves of the proper size, the <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>scytale</foreign> answered all the ends of +a message in cypher.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Prophecy is like the German sentence,—it can be understood only when we have +read its last word. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 48—<q>God's providence is like +the Hebrew Bible; we must begin at the end and read backward, in order to understand +it.</q> Yet Dr. Gordon seems to assert that such understanding is possible even +before fulfilment: <q>Christ did not know the day of the end when here in his state of +humiliation; but he does know now. He has shown his knowledge in the Apocalypse, +and we have received <emph><q>The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the +things which must shortly come to pass</q> (Rev. 1:1)</emph>.</q> A study however of the multitudinous and +conflicting views of the so-called interpreters of prophecy leads us to prefer to Dr. +Gordon's view that of Briggs, Messianic Prophecies, 49—<q>The first advent is the resolver +of all Old Testament prophecy; ... the second advent will give the key to New +Testament prophecy. It is <emph><q>the Lamb that hath been slain</q> (Rev. 5:12)</emph> ... who alone opens +the sealed book, solves the riddles of time, and resolves the symbols of prophecy.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Nitzsch: <q>It is the essential condition of prophecy that it should not disturb man's +relation to history.</q> In so far as this is forgotten, and it is falsely assumed that the +purpose of prophecy is to enable us to map out the precise events of the future before +they occur, the study of prophecy ministers to a diseased imagination and diverts +attention from practical Christian duty. Calvin: <q>Aut insanum inveniet aut faciet</q>; +or, as Lord Brougham translated it: <q>The study of prophecy either finds a man crazy, +or it leaves him so.</q> Second Adventists do not often seek conversions. Dr. Cumming +warned the women of his flock that they must not study prophecy so much as to neglect +their household duties. Paul has such in mind in <emph>2 Thess. 2:1, 2—<q>touching the coming of +our Lord Jesus Christ ... that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind ... as that the day of the Lord is just at +hand</q></emph>; <emph>3:11—<q>For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +9. <hi rend='italic'>Evidential force of Prophecy—so far as it is fulfilled.</hi> Prophecy, +like miracles, does not stand alone as evidence of the divine commission of +the Scripture writers and teachers. It is simply a corroborative attestation, +which unites with miracles to prove that a religious teacher has come +from God and speaks with divine authority. We cannot, however, dispense +with this portion of the evidences,—for unless the death and resurrection +of Christ are events foreknown and foretold by himself, as well as by the +ancient prophets, we lose one main proof of his authority as a teacher sent +from God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 338—<q>The Christian's own life is the progressive +fulfilment of the prophecy that whoever accepts Christ's grace shall be born +again, sanctified, and saved. Hence the Christian can believe in God's power to predict, +and in God's actual predictions.</q> See Stanley Leathes, O. T. Prophecy, xvii—<q>Unless +we have access to the supernatural, we have no access to God.</q> In our discussions +of prophecy, we are to remember that before making the truth of Christianity +stand or fall with any particular passage that has been regarded as prediction, we must +be certain that the passage is meant as prediction, and not as merely figurative description. +Gladden, Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 195—<q>The book of Daniel is not a prophecy,—it +is an apocalypse.... The author [of such books] puts his words into the +mouth of some historical or traditional writer of eminence. Such are the Book of +Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, Baruch, 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Sibylline Oracles. +Enigmatic form indicates persons without naming them, and historic events as animal +forms or as operations of nature.... The book of Daniel is not intended to teach us +history. It does not look forward from the sixth century before Christ, but backward +from the second century before Christ. It is a kind of story which the Jews called +Haggada. It is aimed at Antiochus Epiphanes, who, from his occasional fits of melancholy, +was called Epimanes, or Antiochus the Mad.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='141'/><anchor id='Pg141'/> + +<p> +Whatever may be our conclusion as to the authorship of the book of Daniel, we +must recognize in it an element of prediction which has been actually fulfilled. The +most radical interpreters do not place its date later than 163 B. C. Our Lord sees in the +book clear reference to himself (<emph>Mat. 26:64—<q>the Son of man, sitting at the right hand of Power, +and coming on the clouds of heaven</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Dan. 7:13</emph>); and he repeats with emphasis certain predictions +of the prophet which were yet unfulfilled (<emph>Mat. 24:15—<q>When ye see the abomination of +desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Dan. 9:27</emph>; <emph>11:31</emph>; <emph>12:11</emph>). The book of +Daniel must therefore be counted profitable not only for its moral and spiritual lessons, +but also for its actual predictions of Christ and of the universal triumph of his kingdom +(<emph>Dan. 2:45—<q>a stone cut out of the mountain without hands</q></emph>). See on Daniel, Hastings' Bible +Dictionary; Farrar, in Expositor's Bible. On the general subject see Annotated Paragraph +Bible, Introd. to Prophetical Books; Cairns, on Present State of Christian Argument +from Prophecy, in Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 27; Edersheim, Prophecy and History; +Briggs, Messianic Prophecy; Redford, Prophecy, its Nature and Evidence; +Willis J. Beecher, the Prophet and the Promise; Orr, Problem of the O. T., 455-465. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Having thus removed the presumption originally existing against miracles +and prophecy, we may now consider the ordinary laws of evidence +and determine the rules to be followed in estimating the weight of the +Scripture testimony. +</p> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. Principles of Historical Evidence applicable to the Proof of a Divine Revelation.</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='smallcaps'>Principles of Historical Evidence applicable to the Proof of +a Divine Revelation</hi> (mainly derived from Greenleaf, Testimony of the +Evangelists, and from Starkie on Evidence). +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. As to documentary evidence.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Documents apparently ancient, not bearing upon their face the +marks of forgery, and found in proper custody, are presumed to be genuine +until sufficient evidence is brought to the contrary. The New Testament +documents, since they are found in the custody of the church, their natural +and legitimate depository, must by this rule be presumed to be genuine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Christian documents were not found, like the Book of Mormon, in a cave, or +in the custody of angels. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 322—<q>The Mormon prophet, +who cannot tell God from devil close at hand, is well up with the history of both +worlds, and commissioned to get ready the second promised land.</q> Washington Gladden, +Who wrote the Bible?—<q>An angel appeared to Smith and told him where he would +find this book; he went to the spot designated and found in a stone box a volume six +inches thick, composed of thin gold plates, eight inches by seven, held together by +three gold rings; these plates were covered with writing, in the <q>Reformed Egyptian +tongue</q>; with this book were the <q>Urim and Thummim</q>, a pair of supernatural spectacles, +by means of which he was able to read and translate this <q>Reformed Egyptian</q> +language.</q> Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 113—<q>If the ledger of a business firm has +always been received and regarded as a ledger, its value is not at all impeached if it is +impossible to tell which particular clerk kept this ledger.... The epistle to the +Hebrews would be no less valuable as evidence, if shown not to have been written by +Paul.</q> See Starkie on Evidence, 480 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Chalmers, Christian Revelation, in Works, 3:147-171. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Copies of ancient documents, made by those most interested in their +faithfulness, are presumed to correspond with the originals, even although +those originals no longer exist. Since it was the church's interest to have +faithful copies, the burden of proof rests upon the objector to the Christian +documents. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Upon the evidence of a copy of its own records, the originals having been lost, the +House of Lords decided a claim to the peerage; see Starkie on Evidence, 51. There is +no manuscript of Sophocles earlier than the tenth century, while at least two manuscripts +of the N. T. go back to the fourth century. Frederick George Kenyon, Handbook +to Textual Criticism of N. T.: <q>We owe our knowledge of most of the great +<pb n='142'/><anchor id='Pg142'/> +works of Greek and Latin literature—Æschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Horace, +Lucretius, Tacitus, and many more—to manuscripts written from 900 to 1500 years +after their authors' deaths; while of the N. T. we have two excellent and approximately +complete copies at an interval of only 250 years. Again, of the classical writers +we have as a rule only a few score of copies (often less), of which one or two stand out +as decisively superior to all the rest; but of the N. T. we have more than 3000 copies +(besides a very large number of versions), and many of these have distinct and independent +value.</q> The mother of Tischendorf named him Lobgott, because her fear +that her babe would be born blind had not come true. No man ever had keener sight +than he. He spent his life in deciphering old manuscripts which other eyes could not +read. The Sinaitic manuscript which he discovered takes us back within three centuries +of the time of the apostles. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) In determining matters of fact, after the lapse of considerable time, +documentary evidence is to be allowed greater weight than oral testimony. +Neither memory nor tradition can long be trusted to give absolutely correct +accounts of particular facts. The New Testament documents, therefore, +are of greater weight in evidence than tradition would be, even if only +thirty years had elapsed since the death of the actors in the scenes they +relate. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Starkie on Evidence, 51, 730. The Roman Catholic Church, in its legends of the +saints, shows how quickly mere tradition can become corrupt. Abraham Lincoln was +assassinated in 1865, yet sermons preached to-day on the anniversary of his birth make +him out to be Unitarian, Universalist, or Orthodox, according as the preacher himself +believes. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. As to testimony in general.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In questions as to matters of fact, the proper inquiry is not whether +it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient +probability that it is true. It is unfair, therefore, to allow our examination +of the Scripture witnesses to be prejudiced by suspicion, merely because +their story is a sacred one. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There must be no prejudice against, there must be open-mindedness to, truth; there +must be a normal aspiration after the signs of communication from God. Telepathy, +forty days fasting, parthenogenesis, all these might once have seemed antecedently +incredible. Now we see that it would have been more rational to admit their existence +on presentation of appropriate evidence. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by competent +and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence is meant such +evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. By satisfactory +evidence is meant that amount of proof which ordinarily satisfies an +unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Scripture facts are therefore +proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence +which would in the affairs of ordinary life satisfy the mind and conscience +of a common man. When we have this kind and degree of evidence it is +unreasonable to require more. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In matters of morals and religion competent evidence need not be mathematical or +even logical. The majority of cases in criminal courts are decided upon evidence that +is circumstantial. We do not determine our choice of friends or of partners in life by +strict processes of reasoning. The heart as well as the head must be permitted a voice, +and competent evidence includes considerations arising from the moral needs of the +soul. The evidence, moreover, does not require to be demonstrative. Even a slight +balance of probability, when nothing more certain is attainable, may suffice to constitute +rational proof and to bind our moral action. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='143'/><anchor id='Pg143'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every +witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden +of impeaching his testimony lying upon the objector. The principle which +leads men to give true witness to facts is stronger than that which leads +them to give false witness. It is therefore unjust to compel the Christian +to establish the credibility of his witnesses before proceeding to adduce +their testimony, and it is equally unjust to allow the uncorroborated testimony +of a profane writer to outweigh that of a Christian writer. Christian +witnesses should not be considered interested, and therefore untrustworthy; +for they became Christians against their worldly interests, and because they +could not resist the force of testimony. Varying accounts among them +should be estimated as we estimate the varying accounts of profane writers. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +John's account of Jesus differs from that of the synoptic gospels; but in a very similar +manner, and probably for a very similar reason, Plato's account of Socrates differs +from that of Xenophon. Each saw and described that side of his subject which he was +by nature best fitted to comprehend,—compare the Venice of Canaletto with the Venice +of Turner, the former the picture of an expert draughtsman, the latter the vision of a +poet who sees the palaces of the Doges glorified by air and mist and distance. In Christ +there was a <emph><q>hiding of his power</q> (Hab. 3:4)</emph>; <emph><q>how small a whisper do we hear of him!</q> (Job 26:14)</emph>; he, +rather than Shakespeare, is <q>the myriad-minded</q>; no one evangelist can be expected +to know or describe him except <emph><q>in part</q> (1 Cor. 13:12)</emph>. Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 2:402—<q>All +of us human beings resemble diamonds, in having several distinct facets to our +characters; and, as we always turn one of these to one person and another to another, +there is generally some fresh side to be seen in a particularly brilliant gem.</q> E. P. +Tenney, Coronation, 45—<q>The secret and powerful life he [the hero of the story] was +leading was like certain solitary streams, deep, wide, and swift, which run unseen +through vast and unfrequented forests. So wide and varied was this man's nature, that +whole courses of life might thrive in its secret places,—and his neighbors might touch +him and know him only on that side on which he was like them.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) A slight amount of positive testimony, so long as it is uncontradicted, +outweighs a very great amount of testimony that is merely negative. The +silence of a second witness, or his testimony that he did not see a certain +alleged occurrence, cannot counterbalance the positive testimony of a first +witness that he did see it. We should therefore estimate the silence of profane +writers with regard to facts narrated in Scripture precisely as we should +estimate it if the facts about which they are silent were narrated by other +profane writers, instead of being narrated by the writers of Scripture. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Egyptian monuments make no mention of the destruction of Pharaoh and his army; +but then, Napoleon's dispatches also make no mention of his defeat at Trafalgar. At +the tomb of Napoleon in the Invalides of Paris, the walls are inscribed with names of +a multitude of places where his battles were fought, but Waterloo, the scene of his +great defeat, is not recorded there. So Sennacherib, in all his monuments, does not +refer to the destruction of his army in the time of Hezekiah. Napoleon gathered +450,000 men at Dresden to invade Russia. At Moscow the soft-falling snow conquered +him. In one night 20,000 horses perished with cold. Not without reason at Moscow, on +the anniversary of the retreat of the French, the exultation of the prophet over the +fall of Sennacherib is read in the churches. James Robertson, Early History of Israel, +395, note—<q>Whately, in his Historic Doubts, draws attention to the fact that the +principal Parisian journal in 1814, on the very day on which the allied armies entered +Paris as conquerors, makes no mention of any such event. The battle of Poictiers in +732, which effectually checked the spread of Mohammedanism across Europe, is not +once referred to in the monastic annals of the period. Sir Thomas Browne lived +through the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, yet there is no syllable in his writings +with regard to them. Sale says that circumcision is regarded by Mohammedans as an +ancient divine institution, the rite having been in use many years before Mohammed, +yet it is not so much as once mentioned in the Koran.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='144'/><anchor id='Pg144'/> + +<p> +Even though we should grant that Josephus does not mention Jesus, we should have +a parallel in Thucydides, who never once mentions Socrates, the most important character +of the twenty years embraced in his history. Wieseler, however, in Jahrbuch f. d. +Theologie, 23:98, maintains the essential genuineness of the commonly rejected passage +with regard to Jesus in Josephus, Antiq., 18:3:3, omitting, however, as interpolations, +the phrases: <q>if it be right to call him man</q>; <q>this was the Christ</q>; <q>he appeared +alive the third day according to prophecy</q>; for these, if genuine, would prove Josephus +a Christian, which he, by all ancient accounts, was not. Josephus lived from A. D. 34 +to possibly 114. He does elsewhere speak of Christ; for he records (20:9:1) that +Albinus <q>assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of +Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others ... and delivered +them to be stoned.</q> See Niese's new edition of Josephus; also a monograph on the subject +by Gustav Adolph Müller, published at Innsbruck, 1890. Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus +of Nazareth, 22—<q>To mention Jesus more fully would have required some approval of +his life and teaching. This would have been a condemnation of his own people whom +he desired to commend to Gentile regard, and he seems to have taken the cowardly +course of silence concerning a matter more noteworthy, for that generation, than +much else of which he writes very fully.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <q>The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon: first, +their ability; secondly, their honesty; thirdly, their number and the consistency +of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with +experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral +circumstances.</q> We confidently submit the New Testament witnesses to +each and all of these tests. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Starkie on Evidence, 726. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='145'/><anchor id='Pg145'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter II. Positive Proofs That The Scriptures Are A Divine +Revelation.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Genuineness of the Christian Documents.</head> + +<p> +<hi rend='smallcaps'>The Genuineness of the Christian Documents</hi>, or proof that the +books of the Old and New Testaments were written at the age to which they +are assigned and by the men or class of men to whom they are ascribed. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Our present discussion comprises the first part, and only the first part, of the doctrine +of the Canon (κανών, a measuring-reed; hence, a rule, a standard). It is important to +observe that the determination of the Canon, or list of the books of sacred Scripture, +is not the work of the church as an organized body. We do not receive these books +upon the authority of Fathers or Councils. We receive them, only as the Fathers and +Councils received them, because we have evidence that they are the writings of the +men, or class of men, whose names they bear, and that they are also credible and +inspired. If the previous epistle alluded to in <emph>1 Cor. 5:9</emph> should be discovered and be universally +judged authentic, it could be placed with Paul's other letters and could form +part of the Canon, even though it has been lost for 1800 years. Bruce, Apologetics, +321—<q>Abstractly the Canon is an open question. It can never be anything else on the +principles of Protestantism which forbid us to accept the decisions of church councils, +whether ancient or modern, as final. But practically the question of the Canon is +closed.</q> The Westminster Confession says that the authority of the word of God +<q>does not rest upon historic evidence; it does not rest upon the authority of Councils; +it does not rest upon the consent of the past or the excellence of the matter; but it rests +upon the Spirit of God bearing witness to our hearts concerning its divine authority.</q> +Clarke, Christian Theology, 24—<q>The value of the Scriptures to us does not depend +upon our knowing who wrote them. In the O. T. half its pages are of uncertain authorship. +New dates mean new authorship. Criticism is a duty, for dates of authorship +give means of interpretation. The Scriptures have power because God is in them, and +because they describe the entrance of God into the life of man.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Saintine, Picciola, 782—<q>Has not a feeble reed provided man with his first arrow, his +first pen, his first instrument of music?</q> Hugh Macmillan: <q>The idea of stringed instruments +was first derived from the twang of the well strung bow, as the archer shot his +arrows; the lyre and the harp which discourse the sweetest music of peace were invented +by those who first heard this inspiring sound in the excitement of battle. And so there is +no music so delightful amid the jarring discord of the world, turning everything to +music and harmonizing earth and heaven, as when the heart rises out of the gloom of +anger and revenge, and converts its bow into a harp, and sings to it the Lord's song of +infinite forgiveness.</q> George Adam Smith, Mod. Criticism and Preaching of O. T., 5—<q>The +church has never renounced her liberty to revise the Canon. The liberty at the +beginning cannot be more than the liberty thereafter. The Holy Spirit has not forsaken +the leaders of the church. Apostolic writers nowhere define the limits of the +Canon, any more than Jesus did. Indeed, they employed extra-canonical writings. +Christ and the apostles nowhere bound the church to believe all the teachings of the +O. T. Christ discriminates, and forbids the literal interpretation of its contents. Many +of the apostolic interpretations challenge our sense of truth. Much of their exegesis +was temporary and false. Their judgment was that much in the O. T. was rudimentary. +This opens the question of development in revelation, and justifies the attempt to fix +the historic order. The N. T. criticism of the O. T. gives the liberty of criticism, and the +need, and the obligation of it. O. T. criticism is not, like Baur's of the N. T., the result +of <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> Hegelian reasoning. From the time of Samuel we have real history. The +prophets do not appeal to miracles. There is more gospel in the book of Jonah, when +<pb n='146'/><anchor id='Pg146'/> +it is treated as a parable. The O. T. is a gradual ethical revelation of God. Few realize +that the church of Christ has a higher warrant for her Canon of the O. T. than she has +for her Canon of the N. T. The O. T. was the result of criticism in the widest sense of +that word. But what the church thus once achieved, the church may at any time +revise.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We reserve to a point somewhat later the proof of the credibility and the inspiration +of the Scriptures. We now show their genuineness, as we would show the genuineness +of other religious books, like the Koran, or of secular documents, like Cicero's Orations +against Catiline. Genuineness, in the sense in which we use the term, does not necessarily +imply authenticity (<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, truthfulness and authority); see Blunt, Dict. Doct. and +Hist. Theol., art.: Authenticity. Documents may be genuine which are written in +whole or in part by persons other than they whose names they bear, provided these +persons belong to the same class. The Epistle to the Hebrews, though not written by +Paul, is genuine, because it proceeds from one of the apostolic class. The addition of Deut. +34, after Moses' death, does not invalidate the genuineness of the Pentateuch; nor would +the theory of a later Isaiah, even if it were established, disprove the genuineness of that +prophecy; provided, in both cases, that the additions were made by men of the prophetic +class. On the general subject of the genuineness of the Scripture documents, see +Alexander, McIlvaine, Chalmers, Dodge, and Peabody, on the Evidences of Christianity; +also Archibald, The Bible Verified. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Genuineness of the Books of the New Testament.</head> + +<p> +We do not need to adduce proof of the existence of the books of the New +Testament as far back as the third century, for we possess manuscripts of +them which are at least fourteen hundred years old, and, since the third +century, references to them have been inwoven into all history and literature. +We begin our proof, therefore, by showing that these documents not +only existed, but were generally accepted as genuine, before the close of +the second century. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Origen was born as early as 186 A. D.; yet Tregelles tells us that Origen's works contain +citations embracing two-thirds of the New Testament. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, +12—<q>The early years of Christianity were in some respects like the early years of our +lives.... Those early years are the most important in our education. We learn +then, we hardly know how, through effort and struggle and innocent mistakes, to use +our eyes and ears, to measure distance and direction, by a process which ascends by +unconscious steps to the certainty which we feel in our maturity.... It was in some +such unconscious way that the Christian thought of the early centuries gradually +acquired the form which we find when it emerges as it were into the developed manhood +of the fourth century.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +A. All the books of the New Testament, with the single exception of +2 Peter, were not only received as genuine, but were used in more or less +collected form, in the latter half of the second century. These collections +of writings, so slowly transcribed and distributed, imply the long continued +previous existence of the separate books, and forbid us to fix their origin +later than the first half of the second century. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Tertullian (160-230) appeals to the <q>New Testament</q> as made up of +the <q>Gospels</q> and <q>Apostles.</q> He vouches for the genuineness of the four +gospels, the Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, thirteen epistles of Paul, and the Apocalypse; +in short, to twenty-one of the twenty-seven books of our Canon. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Sanday, Bampton Lectures for 1893, is confident that the first three gospels took their +present shape before the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet he thinks the first and third +gospels of composite origin, and probably the second. Not later than 125 A. D. the four +gospels of our Canon had gained a recognized and exceptional authority. Andover +Professors, Divinity of Jesus Christ, 40—<q>The oldest of our gospels was written about +the year 70. The earlier one, now lost, a great part of which is preserved in Luke and +Matthew, was probably written a few years earlier.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='147'/><anchor id='Pg147'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The Muratorian Canon in the West and the Peshito Version in the +East (having a common date of about 160) in their catalogues of the New +Testament writings mutually complement each other's slight deficiencies, +and together witness to the fact that at that time every book of our present +New Testament, with the exception of 2 Peter, was received as genuine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 50—<q>The fragment on the Canon, discovered +by Muratori in 1738, was probably written about 170 A. D., in Greek. It begins with +the last words of a sentence which must have referred to the Gospel of Mark, and proceeds +to speak of the Third Gospel as written by Luke the physician, who did not see the +Lord, and then of the Fourth Gospel as written by John, a disciple of the Lord, at the +request of his fellow disciples and his elders.</q> Bacon, N. T. Introduction, 50, gives the +Muratorian Canon in full; 30—<q>Theophilus of Antioch (181-190) is the first to cite a +gospel by name, quoting <emph>John 1:1</emph> as from <q>John, one of those who were vessels of the +Spirit.</q></q> On the Muratorian Canon, see Tregelles, Muratorian Canon. On the Peshito +Version, see Schaff, Introd. to Rev. Gk.-Eng. N. T., xxxvii; Smith's Bible Dict., pp. +3388, 3389. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The Canon of Marcion (140), though rejecting all the gospels but +that of Luke, and all the epistles but ten of Paul's, shows, nevertheless, +that at that early day <q>apostolic writings were regarded as a complete +original rule of doctrine.</q> Even Marcion, moreover, does not deny the +genuineness of those writings which for doctrinal reasons he rejects. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Marcion, the Gnostic, was the enemy of all Judaism, and regarded the God of the +O. T. as a restricted divinity, entirely different from the God of the N. T. Marcion was +<q>ipso Paulo paulinior</q>—<q>plus loyal que le roi.</q> He held that Christianity was something +entirely new, and that it stood in opposition to all that went before it. His +Canon consisted of two parts: the <q>Gospel</q> (Luke, with its text curtailed by omission +of the Hebraistic elements) and the Apostolicon (the epistles of Paul). The epistle to +Diognetus by an unknown author, and the epistle of Barnabas, shared the view of +Marcion. The name of the Deity was changed from Jehovah to Father, Son, and +Holy Ghost. If Marcion's view had prevailed, the Old Testament would have been lost +to the Christian Church. God's revelation would have been deprived of its proof from +prophecy. Development from the past, and divine conduct of Jewish history, would +have been denied. But without the Old Testament, as H. W. Beecher maintained, the +New Testament would lack background; our chief source of knowledge with regard +to God's natural attributes of power, wisdom, and truth would be removed: the love +and mercy revealed in the New Testament would seem characteristics of a weak being, +who could not enforce law or inspire respect. A tree has as much breadth below ground +as there is above; so the O. T. roots of God's revelation are as extensive and necessary +as are its N. T. trunk and branches and leaves. See Allen, Religious Progress, 81; +Westcott, Hist. N. T. Canon, and art.: Canon, in Smith's Bible Dictionary. Also Reuss, +History of Canon; Mitchell, Critical Handbook, part I. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The Christian and Apostolic Fathers who lived in the first half of +the second century not only quote from these books and allude to them, +but testify that they were written by the apostles themselves. We are +therefore compelled to refer their origin still further back, namely, to the +first century, when the apostles lived. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Irenæus (120-200) mentions and quotes the four gospels by name, +and among them the gospel according to John: <q>Afterwards John, the +disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published +a gospel, while he dwelt in Ephesus in Asia.</q> And Irenæus was the disciple +and friend of Polycarp (80-166), who was himself a personal acquaintance +of the Apostle John. The testimony of Irenæus is virtually the +evidence of Polycarp, the contemporary and friend of the Apostle, that each +of the gospels was written by the person whose name it bears. +</p> + +<pb n='148'/><anchor id='Pg148'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To this testimony it is objected that Irenæus says there are four gospels because +there are four quarters of the world and four living creatures in the cherubim. But +we reply that Irenæus is here stating, not his own reason for accepting four and +only four gospels, but what he conceives to be God's reason for ordaining that there +should be four. We are not warranted in supposing that he accepted the four gospels +on any other ground than that of testimony that they were the productions of apostolic +men. +</p> + +<p> +Chrysostom, in a similar manner, compares the four gospels to a chariot and four: +When the King of Glory rides forth in it, he shall receive the triumphal acclamations +of all peoples. So Jerome: God rides upon the cherubim, and since there are four +cherubim, there must be four gospels. All this however is an early attempt at the +philosophy of religion, and not an attempt to demonstrate historical fact. L. L. Paine, +Evolution of Trinitarianism, 319-367, presents the radical view of the authorship of +the fourth gospel. He holds that John the apostle died A. D. 70, or soon after, and +that Irenæus confounded the two Johns whom Papias so clearly distinguished—John +the Apostle and John the Elder. With Harnack, Paine supposes the gospel to have +been written by John the Elder, a contemporary of Papias. But we reply that the testimony +of Irenæus implies a long continued previous tradition. R. W. Dale, Living +Christ and Four Gospels, 145—<q>Religious veneration such as that with which Irenæus +regarded these books is of slow growth. They must have held a great place in the +Church as far back as the memory of living men extended.</q> See Hastings' Bible Dictionary, +2:695. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Justin Martyr (died 148) speaks of <q>memoirs (ἀπομνημονεύματα) of +Jesus Christ,</q> and his quotations, though sometimes made from memory, +are evidently cited from our gospels. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To this testimony it is objected: (1) That Justin Martyr uses the term <q>memoirs</q> +instead of <q>gospels.</q> We reply that he elsewhere uses the term <q>gospels</q> and identifies +the <q>memoirs</q> with them: Apol., 1:66—<q>The apostles, in the memoirs composed by +them, which are called gospels,</q> <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, not memoirs, but gospels, was the proper title of +his written records. In writing his Apology to the heathen Emperors, Marcus Aurelius +and Marcus Antoninus, he chooses the term <q>memoirs</q>, or <q>memorabilia</q>, which Xenophon +had used as the title of his account of Socrates, simply in order that he may avoid +ecclesiastical expressions unfamiliar to his readers and may commend his writing to +lovers of classical literature. Notice that Matthew must be added to John, to justify +Justin's repeated statement that there were <q>memoirs</q> of our Lord <q>written by apostles,</q> +and that Mark and Luke must be added to justify his further statement that +these memoirs were compiled by <q>his apostles and those who followed them.</q> Analogous +to Justin's use of the word <q>memoirs</q> is his use of the term <q>Sunday</q>, instead of +Sabbath: Apol. 1:67—<q>On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country +gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the +prophets are read.</q> Here is the use of our gospels in public worship, as of equal +authority with the O. T. Scriptures; in fact, Justin constantly quotes the words and acts +of Jesus' life from a written source, using the word γέγραπται. See Morison, Com. on +Mat., ix; Hemphill, Literature of Second Century, 234. +</p> + +<p> +To Justin's testimony it is objected: (2) That in quoting the words spoken from heaven +at the Savior's baptism, he makes them to be: <q>My son, this day have I begotten +thee,</q> so quoting <emph>Psalm 2:7</emph>, and showing that he was ignorant of our present gospel, +<emph>Mat. 3:17</emph>. We reply that this was probably a slip of the memory, quite natural in +a day when the gospels existed only in the cumbrous form of manuscript rolls. Justin +also refers to the Pentateuch for two facts which it does not contain; but we should not +argue from this that he did not possess our present Pentateuch. The plays of Terence +are quoted by Cicero and Horace, and we require neither more nor earlier witnesses to +their genuineness,—yet Cicero and Horace wrote a hundred years after Terence. It +is unfair to refuse similar evidence to the gospels. Justin had a way of combining into +one the sayings of the different evangelists—a hint which Tatian, his pupil, probably +followed out in composing his Diatessaron. On Justin Martyr's testimony, see Ezra +Abbot, Genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, 49, note. B. W. Bacon, Introd. to N. T., +speaks of Justin as <q>writing <hi rend='italic'>circa</hi> 155 A. D.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Papias (80-164), whom Irenæus calls a <q>hearer of John,</q> testifies +that Matthew <q>wrote in the Hebrew dialect the sacred oracles (τὰ λόγια),</q> +<pb n='149'/><anchor id='Pg149'/> +and that <q>Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote after Peter, (ὕστερον Πέτρῳ) +[or under Peter's direction], an unsystematic account (οὐ τάξει)</q> of the +same events and discourses. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To this testimony it is objected: (1) That Papias could not have had our gospel of +Matthew, for the reason that this is Greek. We reply, either with Bleek, that Papias +erroneously supposed a Hebrew translation of Matthew, which he possessed, to be the +original; or with Weiss, that the original Matthew was in Hebrew, while our present +Matthew is an enlarged version of the same. Palestine, like modern Wales, was bilingual; +Matthew, like James, might write both Hebrew and Greek. While B. W. Bacon +gives to the writing of Papias a date so late as 145-160 A. D., Lightfoot gives that of 130 +A. D. At this latter date Papias could easily remember stories told him so far back as 80 +A. D., by men who were youths at the time when our Lord lived, died, rose and ascended. +The work of Papias had for its title Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις—<q>Exposition of Oracles +relating to the Lord</q> = Commentaries on the Gospels. Two of these gospels were +Matthew and Mark. The view of Weiss mentioned above has been criticized upon the +ground that the quotations from the O. T. in Jesus' discourses in Matthew are all taken +from the Septuagint and not from the Hebrew. Westcott answers this criticism by suggesting +that, in translating his Hebrew gospel into Greek, Matthew substituted for his +own oral version of Christ's discourses the version of these already existing in the oral +common gospel. There was a common oral basis of true teaching, the <emph><q>deposit</q></emph>—τὴν +παραθήκην—committed to Timothy (<emph>1 Tim. 6:20</emph>; <emph>2 Tim. 1:12, 14</emph>), the same story told many +times and getting to be told in the same way. The narratives of Matthew, Mark and +Luke are independent versions of this apostolic testimony. First came belief; secondly, +oral teaching; thirdly, written gospels. That the original gospel was in Aramaic +seems probable from the fact that the Oriental name for <emph><q>tares,</q></emph> <foreign rend='italic'>zawān</foreign>, (<emph>Mat. 13:25</emph>) +has been transliterated into Greek, ζιζάνια. Morison, Com. on Mat., thinks that Matthew +originally wrote in Hebrew a collection of Sayings of Jesus Christ, which the Nazarenes +and Ebionites added to, partly from tradition, and partly from translating his full gospel, +till the result was the so-called Gospel of the Hebrews; but that Matthew wrote his +own gospel in Greek after he had written the Sayings in Hebrew. Professor W. A. +Stevens thinks that Papias probably alluded to the original autograph which Matthew +wrote in Aramaic, but which he afterwards enlarged and translated into Greek. See +Hemphill, Literature of the Second Century, 267. +</p> + +<p> +To the testimony of Papias it is also objected: (2) That Mark is the most systematic +of all evangelists, presenting events as a true annalist, in chronological order. We +reply that while, so far as chronological order is concerned, Mark is systematic, so far +as logical order is concerned he is the most unsystematic of the evangelists, showing +little of the power of historical grouping which is so discernible in Matthew. Matthew +aimed to portray a life, rather than to record a chronology. He groups Jesus' +teachings in chapters 5, 6, and 7; his miracles in chapters 8 and 9; his directions to the +apostles in chapter 10; chapters 11 and 12 describe the growing opposition; chapter 13 +meets this opposition with his parables; the remainder of the gospel describes our +Lord's preparation for his death, his progress to Jerusalem, the consummation of his +work in the Cross and in the resurrection. Here is true system, a philosophical arrangement +of material, compared with which the method of Mark is eminently unsystematic. +Mark is a Froissart, while Matthew has the spirit of J. R. Green. See Bleek, Introd. +to N. T., 1:108, 126; Weiss, Life of Jesus, 1:27-39. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The Apostolic Fathers,—Clement of Rome (died 101), Ignatius of +Antioch (martyred 115), and Polycarp (80-166),—companions and friends +of the apostles, have left us in their writings over one hundred quotations +from or allusions to the New Testament writings, and among these every +book, except four minor epistles (2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John) is represented. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Although these are single testimonies, we must remember that they are the testimonies +of the chief men of the churches of their day, and that they express the opinion +of the churches themselves. <q>Like banners of a hidden army, or peaks of a +distant mountain range, they represent and are sustained by compact, continuous +bodies below.</q> In an article by P. W. Calkins, McClintock and Strong's Encyclopædia, +1:315-317, quotations from the Apostolic Fathers in great numbers are put side by +<pb n='150'/><anchor id='Pg150'/> +side with the New Testament passages from which they quote or to which they allude. +An examination of these quotations and allusions convinces us that these Fathers +were in possession of all the principal books of our New Testament. See Ante-Nicene +Library of T. and T. Clark; Thayer, in Boston Lectures for 1871:324; Nash, Ethics and +Revelation, 11—<q>Ignatius says to Polycarp: <q>The times call for thee, as the winds call +for the pilot.</q> So do the times call for reverent, fearless scholarship in the church.</q> +Such scholarship, we are persuaded, has already demonstrated the genuineness of the +N. T. documents. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) In the synoptic gospels, the omission of all mention of the fulfilment +of Christ's prophecies with regard to the destruction of Jerusalem is +evidence that these gospels were written before the occurrence of that +event. In the Acts of the Apostles, universally attributed to Luke, we have +an allusion to <q>the former treatise</q>, or the gospel by the same author, which +must, therefore, have been written before the end of Paul's first imprisonment +at Rome, and probably with the help and sanction of that apostle. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Acts 1:1—<q>The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.</q></emph> +If the Acts was written A. D. 63, two years after Paul's arrival at Rome, then <emph><q>the former +treatise,</q></emph> the gospel according to Luke, can hardly be dated later than 60; and since +the destruction of Jerusalem took place in 70, Matthew and Mark must have published +their gospels at least as early as the year 68, when multitudes of men were still living +who had been eye-witnesses of the events of Jesus' life. Fisher, Nature and Method +of Revelation, 180—<q>At any considerably later date [than the capture of Jerusalem] +the apparent conjunction of the fall of the city and the temple with the Parousia +would have been avoided or explained.... Matthew, in its present form, appeared +after the beginning of the mortal struggle of the Romans with the Jews, or between +65 and 70. Mark's gospel was still earlier. The language of the passages relative to the +Parousia, in Luke, is consistent with the supposition that he wrote after the fall of +Jerusalem, but not with the supposition that it was long after.</q> See Norton, Genuineness +of the Gospels; Alford, Greek Testament, Prolegomena, 30, 31, 36, 45-47. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. It is to be presumed that this acceptance of the New Testament documents +as genuine, on the part of the Fathers of the churches, was for +good and sufficient reasons, both internal and external, and this presumption +is corroborated by the following considerations: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) There is evidence that the early churches took every care to assure +themselves of the genuineness of these writings before they accepted them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Evidences of care are the following:—Paul, in <emph>2 Thess. 2:2</emph>, urged the churches to use +care, <emph><q>to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, +or by epistle as from us</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 5:9—<q>I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators</q></emph>; <emph>Col. +4:16—<q>when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and +that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea.</q></emph> Melito (169), Bishop of Sardis, who wrote a treatise on +the Revelation of John, went as far as Palestine to ascertain on the spot the facts relating +to the Canon of the O. T., and as a result of his investigations excluded the Apocrypha. +Ryle, Canon of O. T., 203—<q>Melito, the Bishop of Sardis, sent to a friend a list +of the O. T. Scriptures which he professed to have obtained from accurate inquiry, +while traveling in the East, in Syria. Its contents agree with those of the Hebrew +Canon, save in the omission of Esther.</q> Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (191-213, Abbot), +says: <q>We receive Peter and other apostles as Christ, but as skilful men we reject +those writings which are falsely ascribed to them.</q> Geo. H. Ferris, Baptist Congress, +1899:94—<q>Serapion, after permitting the reading of the Gospel of Peter in public services, +finally decided against it, not because he thought there could be no fifth gospel, +but because he thought it was not written by Peter.</q> Tertullian (160-230) gives an +example of the deposition of a presbyter in Asia Minor for publishing a pretended work +of Paul; see Tertullian, De Baptismo, referred to by Godet on John, Introduction; +Lardner, Works, 2:304, 305; McIlvaine, Evidences, 92. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The style of the New Testament writings, and their complete correspondence +with all we know of the lands and times in which they profess +<pb n='151'/><anchor id='Pg151'/> +to have been written, affords convincing proof that they belong to the +apostolic age. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice the mingling of Latin and Greek, as in σπεκουλάτωρ (<emph>Mark 6:27</emph>) and κεντυρίων +(<emph>Mark 15:39</emph>); of Greek and Aramæan, as in πρασιαὶ πρασιαί (<emph>Mark 6:40</emph>) and βδέλυγμα τῆς +ἐρημώσεως (<emph>Mat. 24:15</emph>); this could hardly have occurred after the first century. Compare +the anachronisms of style and description in Thackeray's <q>Henry Esmond,</q> +which, in spite of the author's special studies and his determination to exclude all words +and phrases that had originated in his own century, was marred by historical errors +that Macaulay in his most remiss moments would hardly have made. James Russell +Lowell told Thackeray that <q>different to</q> was not a century old. <q>Hang it, no!</q> +replied Thackeray. In view of this failure, on the part of an author of great literary +skill, to construct a story purporting to be written a century before his time and that +could stand the test of historical criticism, we may well regard the success of our gospels +in standing such tests as a practical demonstration that they were written in, and +not after, the apostolic age. See Alexander, Christ and Christianity, 27-37; Blunt, +Scriptural Coincidences, 244-354. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The genuineness of the fourth gospel is confirmed by the fact that +Tatian (155-170), the Assyrian, a disciple of Justin, repeatedly quoted it +without naming the author, and composed a Harmony of our four gospels +which he named the Diatessaron; while Basilides (130) and Valentinus +(150), the Gnostics, both quote from it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The sceptical work entitled <q>Supernatural Religion</q> said in 1874; <q>No one seems to +have seen Tatian's Harmony, probably for the very simple reason that there was no +such work</q>; and <q>There is no evidence whatever connecting Tatian's Gospel with +those of our Canon.</q> In 1876, however, there was published in a Latin form in Venice +the Commentary of Ephraem Syrus on Tatian, and the commencement of it was: <emph><q>In the +beginning was the Word</q> (John 1:1)</emph>. In 1888, the Diatessaron itself was published in Rome in +the form of an Arabic translation made in the eleventh century from the Syriac. J. +Rendel Harris, in Contemp. Rev., 1893:800 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>, says that the recovery of Tatian's Diatessaron +has indefinitely postponed the literary funeral of St. John. Advanced critics, he +intimates, are so called, because they run ahead of the facts they discuss. The gospels +must have been well established in the Christian church when Tatian undertook to combine +them. Mrs. A. S. Lewis, in S. S. Times, Jan. 23, 1904—<q>The gospels were translated +into Syriac before A. D. 160. It follows that the Greek document from which +they were translated was older still, and since the one includes the gospel of St. John, +so did the other.</q> Hemphill, Literature of the Second Century, 183-231, gives the birth +of Tatian about 120, and the date of his Diatessaron as 172 A. D. +</p> + +<p> +The difference in style between the Revelation and the gospel of John is due to the +fact that the Revelation was written during John's exile in Patmos, under Nero, in 67 +or 68, soon after John had left Palestine and had taken up his residence at Ephesus. He +had hitherto spoken Aramæan, and Greek was comparatively unfamiliar to him. The +gospel was written thirty years after, probably about 97, when Greek had become to +him like a mother tongue. See Lightfoot on Galatians, 343, 347; <hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, see Milligan, +Revelation of St. John. Phrases and ideas which indicate a common authorship of the +Revelation and the gospel are the following: <emph><q>the Lamb of God,</q></emph> <emph><q>the Word of God,</q></emph> <emph><q>the True</q></emph> +as an epithet applied to Christ, <emph><q>the Jews</q></emph> as enemies of God, <emph><q>manna,</q></emph> <emph><q>him whom they pierced</q></emph>; +see Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, 1:4, 5. In the fourth gospel we have ἀμνός, in Apoc. ἀρνίον, +perhaps better to distinguish <emph><q>the Lamb</q></emph> from the diminutive τὸ θηρίον, <emph><q>the beast.</q></emph> Common +to both Gospel and Rev. are ποιεῖν, <emph><q>to do</q></emph> [the truth]; περιπατεῖν, of moral conduct; +ἀληθινός, <emph><q>genuine</q></emph>; διψᾷν, πεινᾷν, of the higher wants of the soul; σκηνοῦν ἐν, +ποιμαίνειν, ὁδηγεῖν; also <emph><q>overcome,</q></emph> <emph><q>testimony,</q></emph> <emph><q>Bridegroom,</q></emph> <emph><q>Shepherd,</q></emph> <emph><q>Water of life.</q></emph> In the Revelation +there are grammatical solecisms: nominative for genitive, 1:4—ἀπὸ ὁ ὤν; nominative +for accusative, 7:9—εἶδον ... ὄχλος πολύς; accusative for nominative, 20:2—τὸν +δράκοντα ὁ ὄφις. Similarly we have in <emph>Rom. 12:5</emph>—τὸ δὲ καθ᾽ εἶς instead of τὸ δὲ καθ᾽ ἕνα, +where κατὰ has lost its regimen—a frequent solecism in later Greek writers; see Godet +on John, 1:269, 270. Emerson reminded Jones Very that the Holy Ghost surely writes +good grammar. The Apocalypse seems to show that Emerson was wrong. +</p> + +<p> +The author of the fourth gospel speaks of John in the third person, <q>and scorned to +blot it with a name.</q> But so does Cæsar speak of himself in his Commentaries. Harnack +<pb n='152'/><anchor id='Pg152'/> +regards both the fourth gospel and the Revelation as the work of John the Presbyter +or Elder, the former written not later than about 110 A. D.; the latter from 93 to +96, but being a revision of one or more underlying Jewish apocalypses. Vischer has +expounded this view of the Revelation; and Porter holds substantially the same, in his +article on the Book of Revelation in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, 4:239-266. <q>It is the +obvious advantage of the Vischer-Harnack hypothesis that it places the original work +under Nero and its revised and Christianized edition under Domitian.</q> (Sanday, Inspiration, +371, 372, nevertheless dismisses this hypothesis as raising worse difficulties than it +removes. He dates the Apocalypse between the death of Nero and the destruction of +Jerusalem by Titus.) Martineau, Seat of Authority, 227, presents the moral objections +to the apostolic authorship, and regards the Revelation, from chapter 4:1 to 22:5, as a +purely Jewish document of the date 66-70, supplemented and revised by a Christian, +and issued not earlier than 136: <q>How strange that we should ever have thought it +possible for a personal attendant upon the ministry of Jesus to write or edit a book +mixing up fierce Messianic conflicts, in which, with the sword, the gory garment, +the blasting flame, the rod of iron, as his emblems, he leads the war-march, and +treads the winepress of the wrath of God until the deluge of blood rises to the horses' +bits, with the speculative Christology of the second century, without a memory of his +life, a feature of his look, a word from his voice, or a glance back at the hillsides of +Galilee, the courts of Jerusalem, the road to Bethany, on which his image must be forever +seen!</q> +</p> + +<p> +The force of this statement, however, is greatly broken if we consider that the apostle +John, in his earlier days, was one of the <emph><q>Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder</q> (Mark 3:17)</emph>, +but became in his later years the apostle of love: <emph>1 John 4:7—<q>Beloved, let us love one another, +for love is of God.</q></emph> The likeness of the fourth gospel to the epistle, which latter was +undoubtedly the work of John the apostle, indicates the same authorship for the gospel. +Thayer remarks that <q>the discovery of the gospel according to Peter sweeps away +half a century of discussion. Brief as is the recovered fragment, it attests indubitably +all four of our canonical books.</q> Riddle, in Popular Com., 1:25—<q>If a forger wrote +the fourth gospel, then Beelzebub has been casting out devils for these eighteen hundred +years.</q> On the genuineness of the fourth gospel, see Bleek, Introd. to N. T., 1:250; +Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 33, also Beginnings of Christianity, +320-362, and Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, 245-309; Sanday, Authorship +of the Fourth Gospel, Gospels in the Second Century, and Criticism of the Fourth +Gospel; Ezra Abbott, Genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, 52, 80-87; Row, Bampton Lectures +on Christian Evidences, 249-287; British Quarterly, Oct. 1872:216; Godet, in Present +Day Tracts, 5: no. 25; Westcott, in Bib. Com. on John's Gospel, Introd., xxviii-xxxii; +Watkins, Bampton Lectures for 1890; W. L. Ferguson, in Bib. Sac., 1896:1-27. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The epistle to the Hebrews appears to have been accepted during +the first century after it was written (so Clement of Borne, Justin Martyr, +and the Peshito Version witness). Then for two centuries, especially in +the Roman and North African churches, and probably because its internal +characteristics were inconsistent with the tradition of a Pauline authorship, +its genuineness was doubted (so Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenæus, Muratorian +Canon). At the end of the fourth century, Jerome examined the evidence +and decided in its favor; Augustine did the same; the third Council of +Carthage formally recognized it (397); from that time the Latin churches +united with the East in receiving it, and thus the doubt was finally and +forever removed. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Epistle to the Hebrews, the style of which is so unlike that of the Apostle Paul, +was possibly written by Apollos, who was an Alexandrian Jew, <emph><q>a learned man</q></emph> and +<emph><q>mighty in the Scriptures</q> (Acts 18:24)</emph>; but it may notwithstanding have been written at the +suggestion and under the direction of Paul, and so be essentially Pauline. A. C. +Kendrick, in American Commentary on Hebrews, points out that while the style of +Paul is prevailingly dialectic, and only in rapt moments becomes rhetorical or poetic, +the style of the Epistle to the Hebrews is prevailingly rhetorical, is free from anacolutha, +and is always dominated by emotion. He holds that these characteristics +point to Apollos as its author. Contrast also Paul's method of quoting the O. T.: <emph><q>it +is written</q> (Rom. 11:8; 1 Cor. 1:31; Gal. 3:10)</emph> with that of the Hebrews: <emph><q>he saith</q> (8:5, 13)</emph>, <emph><q>he +<pb n='153'/><anchor id='Pg153'/> +hath said</q> (4:4)</emph>. Paul quotes the O. T. fifty or sixty times, but never in this latter way. +<emph>Heb. 2:3—<q>which having at the first been spoken by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard</q></emph>—shows +that the writer did not receive the gospel at first hand. Luther and Calvin rightly saw +in this a decisive proof that Paul was not the author, for he always insisted on the +primary and independent character of his gospel. Harnack formerly thought the +epistle written by Barnabas to Christians at Rome, A. D. 81-96. More recently however +he attributes it to Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, or to their joint authorship. The +majesty of its diction, however, seems unfavorable to this view. William T. C. Hanna: +<q>The words of the author ... are marshalled grandly, and move with the tread +of an army, or with the swell of a tidal wave</q>; see Franklin Johnson, Quotations in +N. T. from O. T., xii. Plumptre, Introd. to N. T., 37, and in Expositor, Vol. I, regards +the author of this epistle as the same with that of the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, +the latter being composed before, the former after, the writer's conversion to Christianity. +Perhaps our safest conclusion is that of Origen: <q>God only knows who +wrote it.</q> Harnack however remarks: <q>The time in which our ancient Christian +literature, the N. T. included, was considered as a web of delusions and falsifications, +is past. The oldest literature of the church is, in its main points, and in most of its +details, true and trustworthy.</q> See articles on Hebrews, in Smith's and in Hastings' +Bible Dictionaries. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) As to 2 Peter, Jude, and 2 and 3 John, the epistles most frequently +held to be spurious, we may say that, although we have no conclusive +external evidence earlier than A. D. 160, and in the case of 2 Peter none +earlier than A. D. 230-250, we may fairly urge in favor of their genuineness +not only their internal characteristics of literary style and moral value, +but also the general acceptance of them all since the third century as the +actual productions of the men or class of men whose names they bear. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Firmilianus (250), Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, is the first clear witness to 2 Peter. +Origen (230) names it, but, in naming it, admits that its genuineness is questioned. +The Council of Laodicea (372) first received it into the Canon. With this very gradual +recognition and acceptance of 2 Peter, compare the loss of the later works of Aristotle +for a hundred and fifty years after his death, and their recognition as genuine so soon +as they were recovered from the cellar of the family of Neleus in Asia; De Wette's +first publication of certain letters of Luther after the lapse of three hundred years, +yet without occasioning doubt as to their genuineness; or the concealment of Milton's +Treatise on Christian Doctrine, among the lumber of the State Paper Office in London, +from 1677 to 1823; see Mair, Christian Evidences, 95. Sir William Hamilton complained +that there were treatises of Cudworth, Berkeley and Collier, still lying unpublished +and even unknown to their editors, biographers and fellow metaphysicians, but yet of +the highest interest and importance; see Mansel, Letters, Lectures and Reviews, 381; +Archibald, The Bible Verified, 27. 2 Peter was probably sent from the East shortly +before Peter's martyrdom; distance and persecution may have prevented its rapid +circulation in other countries. Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 114—<q>A ledger may +have been lost, or its authenticity for a long time doubted, but when once it is discovered +and proved, it is as trustworthy as any other part of the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>res gestæ</foreign>.</q> See +Plumptre, Epistles of Peter, Introd., 73-81; Alford on 2 Peter, 4: Prolegomena, 157; +Westcott, on Canon, in Smith's Bib. Dict., 1:370, 373; Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. +Theol., art.: Canon. +</p> + +<p> +It is urged by those who doubt the genuineness of 2 Peter that the epistle speaks +of <emph><q>your apostles</q> (3:2)</emph>, just as <emph>Jude 17</emph> speaks of <emph><q>the apostles,</q></emph> as if the writer did not +number himself among them. But 2 Peter begins with <emph><q>Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus +Christ,</q></emph> and Jude, <emph><q>brother of James</q> (verse 1)</emph> was a brother of our Lord, but not an apostle. +Hovey, Introd. to N. T., xxxi—<q>The earliest passage manifestly based upon 2 Peter +appears to be in the so-called Second Epistle of the Roman Clement, 16:3, which +however is now understood to be a Christian homily from the middle of the second +century.</q> Origen (born 186) testifies that Peter left one epistle, <q>and perhaps a +second, for that is disputed.</q> He also says: <q>John wrote the Apocalypse, and an +epistle of very few lines; and, it may be, a second and a third; since all do not admit +them to be genuine.</q> He quotes also from James and from Jude, adding that their +canonicity was doubted. +</p> + +<pb n='154'/><anchor id='Pg154'/> + +<p> +Harnack regards 1 Peter, 2 Peter, James, and Jude, as written respectively about +160, 170, 130, and 130, but not by the men to whom they are ascribed—the ascriptions to +these authors being later additions. Hort remarks: <q>If I were asked, I should say that +the balance of the argument was against 2 Peter, but the moment I had done so I +should begin to think I might be in the wrong.</q> Sanday, Oracles of God, 73 note, +considers the arguments in favor of 2 Peter unconvincing, but also the arguments +against. He cannot get beyond a <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>non liquet</foreign>. He refers to Salmon, Introd. to N. T., +529-559, ed. 4, as expressing his own view. But the later conclusions of Sanday are +more radical. In his Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, 348, 399, he says: 2 Peter <q>is +probably at least to this extent a counterfeit, that it appears under a name which is +not that of its true author.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Chase, in Hastings' Bib. Dict., 3:806-817, says that <q>the first piece of <emph>certain</emph> evidence +as to 2 Peter is the passage from Origen quoted by Eusebius, though it hardly admits +of doubt that the Epistle was known to Clement of Alexandria.... We find no trace +of the epistle in the period when the tradition of apostolic days was still living.... It +was not the work of the apostle but of the second century ... put forward without +any sinister motive ... the personation of the apostle an obvious literary device rather +than a religious or controversial fraud. The adoption of such a verdict can cause perplexity +only when the Lord's promise of guidance to his Church is regarded as a charter +of infallibility.</q> Against this verdict we would urge the dignity and spiritual value +of 2 Peter—internal evidence which in our judgment causes the balance to incline in +favor of its apostolic authorship. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) Upon no other hypothesis than that of their genuineness can the +general acceptance of these four minor epistles since the third century, and +of all the other books of the New Testament since the middle of the second +century, be satisfactorily accounted for. If they had been mere collections +of floating legends, they could not have secured wide circulation as sacred +books for which Christians must answer with their blood. If they had been +forgeries, the churches at large could neither have been deceived as to +their previous non-existence, nor have been induced unanimously to pretend +that they were ancient and genuine. Inasmuch, however, as other +accounts of their origin, inconsistent with their genuineness, are now current, +we proceed to examine more at length the most important of these +opposing views. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The genuineness of the New Testament as a whole would still be demonstrable, +even if doubt should still attach to one or two of its books. It does not matter that +2nd Alcibiades was not written by Plato, or Pericles by Shakespeare. The Council of +Carthage in 397 gave a place in the Canon to the O. T. Apocrypha, but the Reformers +tore it out. Zwingli said of the Revelation: <q>It is not a Biblical book,</q> and Luther +spoke slightingly of the Epistle of James. The judgment of Christendom at large is +more trustworthy than the private impressions of any single Christian scholar. To +hold the books of the N. T. to be written in the second century by other than those +whose names they bear is to hold, not simply to forgery, but to a conspiracy of forgery. +There must have been several forgers at work, and, since their writings wonderfully +agree, there must have been collusion among them. Yet these able men have +been forgotten, while the names of far feebler writers of the second century have +been preserved. +</p> + +<p> +G. F. Wright, Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences, 343—<q>In civil law there are +<q>statutes of limitations</q> which provide that the general acknowledgment of a purported +fact for a certain period shall be considered as conclusive evidence of it. If, +for example, a man has remained in undisturbed possession of land for a certain number +of years, it is presumed that he has a valid claim to it, and no one is allowed to +dispute his claim.</q> Mair, Evidences, 99—<q>We probably have not a tenth part of the +evidence upon which the early churches accepted the N. T. books as the genuine productions +of their authors. We have only their verdict.</q> Wynne, in Literature of the +Second Century, 58—<q>Those who gave up the Scriptures were looked on by their fellow +Christians as <q>traditores,</q> traitors, who had basely yielded up what they ought to +have treasured as dearer than life. But all their books were not equally sacred. Some +<pb n='155'/><anchor id='Pg155'/> +were essential, and some were non-essential to the faith. Hence arose the distinction +between <emph>canonical</emph> and <emph>non-canonical</emph>. The general consciousness of Christians grew +into a distinct registration.</q> Such registration is entitled to the highest respect, and +lays the burden of proof upon the objector. See Alexander, Christ and Christianity, +Introduction; Hovey, General Introduction to American Commentary on N. T. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. Rationalistic Theories as to the origin of the gospels. These are +attempts to eliminate the miraculous element from the New Testament +records, and to reconstruct the sacred history upon principles of naturalism. +</p> + +<p> +Against them we urge the general objection that they are unscientific in +their principle and method. To set out in an examination of the New Testament +documents with the assumption that all history is a mere natural +development, and that miracles are therefore impossible, is to make history +a matter, not of testimony, but of <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> speculation. It indeed renders +any history of Christ and his apostles impossible, since the witnesses whose +testimony with regard to miracles is discredited can no longer be considered +worthy of credence in their account of Christ's life or doctrine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In Germany, half a century ago, <emph><q>a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick +trees</q> (Ps. 74:5, A. V.)</emph>, just as among the American Indians he was not counted a man who +could not show his scalps. The critics fortunately scalped each other; see Tyler, Theology +of Greek Poets, 79—on Homer. Nicoll, The Church's One Foundation, 15—<q>Like +the mummers of old, sceptical critics send one before them with a broom to sweep the +stage clear of everything for their drama. If we assume at the threshold of the gospel +study that everything of the nature of miracle is impossible, then the specific questions +are decided before the criticism begins to operate in earnest.</q> Matthew Arnold: +<q>Our popular religion at present conceives the birth, ministry and death of Christ as +altogether steeped in prodigy, brimful of miracle,—and <emph>miracles do not happen</emph>.</q> This +presupposition influences the investigations of Kuenen, and of A. E. Abbott, in his +article on the Gospels in the Encyc. Britannica. We give special attention to four of +the theories based upon this assumption. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1st. The Myth-theory of Strauss (1808-1874).</head> + +<p> +According to this view, the gospels are crystallizations into story of Messianic +ideas which had for several generations filled the minds of imaginative +men in Palestine. The myth is a narrative in which such ideas are +unconsciously clothed, and from which the element of intentional and +deliberate deception is absent. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This early view of Strauss, which has become identified with his name, was exchanged +in late years for a more advanced view which extended the meaning of the word +<q>myths</q> so as to include all narratives that spring out of a theological idea, and it +admitted the existence of <q>pious frauds</q> in the gospels. Baur, he says, first convinced +him that the author of the fourth gospel had <q>not unfrequently composed mere +fables, knowing them to be mere fictions.</q> The animating spirit of both the old view +and the new is the same. Strauss says: <q>We know with certainty what Jesus was <emph>not</emph>, +and what he has <emph>not</emph> done, namely, nothing superhuman and supernatural.</q> <q>No gospel +can claim that degree of historic credibility that would be required in order to make +us debase our reason to the point of believing miracles.</q> He calls the resurrection of +Christ <q>ein weltgeschichtlicher Humbug.</q> <q>If the gospels are really historical documents, +we cannot exclude miracle from the life-story of Jesus;</q> see Strauss, Life of +Jesus, 17; New Life of Jesus, 1: preface, xii. Vatke, Einleitung in A. T., 210, 211, distinguishes +the myth from the <emph>saga</emph> or legend: The criterion of the pure myth is that +the experience is impossible, while the <emph>saga</emph> is a tradition of remote antiquity; the +myth has in it the element only of belief, the <emph>saga</emph> has in it an element of history. +Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 37—<q>A myth is false in appearance only. The divine Spirit +can avail himself of the fictions of poetry as well as of logical reasonings. When the +heart was pure, the veils of fable always allowed the face of truth to shine through. +And does not childhood run on into maturity and old age?</q> +</p> + +<pb n='156'/><anchor id='Pg156'/> + +<p> +It is very certain that childlike love of truth was not the animating spirit of Strauss. +On the contrary, his spirit was that of remorseless criticism and of uncompromising hostility +to the supernatural. It has been well said that he gathered up all the previous +objections of sceptics to the gospel narrative and hurled them in one mass, just as +if some Sadducee at the time of Jesus' trial had put all the taunts and gibes, all the buffetings +and insults, all the shame and spitting, into one blow delivered straight into +the face of the Redeemer. An octogenarian and saintly German lady said unsuspectingly +that <q>somehow she never could get interested</q> in Strauss's Leben Jesu, which her +sceptical son had given her for religious reading. The work was almost altogether +destructive, only the last chapter suggesting Strauss's own view of what Jesus was. +</p> + +<p> +If Luther's dictum is true that <q>the heart is the best theologian,</q> Strauss must be +regarded as destitute of the main qualification for his task. Encyc. Britannica, 22:592—<q>Strauss's +mind was almost exclusively analytical and critical, without depth of +religious feeling, or philosophical penetration, or historical sympathy. His work was +rarely constructive, and, save when he was dealing with a kindred spirit, he failed as a +historian, biographer, and critic, strikingly illustrating Goethe's profoundly true principle +that loving sympathy is essential for productive criticism.</q> Pfleiderer, Strauss's +Life of Jesus, xix—<q>Strauss showed that the church formed the mythical traditions +about Jesus out of its faith in him as the Messiah; but he did not show how the church +came by the faith that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.</q> See Carpenter, Mental +Physiology, 362; Grote, Plato, 1:249. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We object to the Myth-theory of Strauss, that +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The time between the death of Christ and the publication of the +gospels was far too short for the growth and consolidation of such mythical +histories. Myths, on the contrary, as the Indian, Greek, Roman and +Scandinavian instances bear witness, are the slow growth of centuries. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The first century was not a century when such formation of myths +was possible. Instead of being a credulous and imaginative age, it was an +age of historical inquiry and of Sadduceeism in matters of religion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Horace, in Odes 1:34 and 3:6, denounces the neglect and squalor of the heathen +temples, and Juvenal, Satire 2:150, says that <q>Esse aliquid manes et subterranea +regna Nec pueri credunt.</q> Arnold of Rugby: <q>The idea of men writing mythic histories +between the times of Livy and of Tacitus, and of St. Paul mistaking them for realities!</q> +Pilate's sceptical inquiry, <emph><q>What is truth?</q> (John 18:38)</emph>, better represented the age. +<q>The mythical age is past when an idea is presented abstractly—apart from narrative.</q> +The Jewish sect of the Sadducees shows that the rationalistic spirit was not +confined to Greeks or Romans. The question of John the Baptist, <emph>Mat. 11:3—<q>Art thou he +that cometh, or look we for another?</q></emph> and our Lord's answer, <emph>Mat. 11:4, 5—<q>Go and tell John the thing +which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight ... the dead are raised up,</q></emph> show that the Jews expected +miracles to be wrought by the Messiah; yet <emph>John 10:41—<q>John indeed did no sign</q></emph> shows also +no irresistible inclination to invest popular teachers with miraculous powers; see +E. G. Robinson, Christian Evidences, 22; Westcott, Com. on John 10:41; Rogers, Superhuman +Origin of the Bible, 61; Cox, Miracles, 50. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The gospels cannot be a mythical outgrowth of Jewish ideas and +expectations, because, in their main features, they run directly counter to +these ideas and expectations. The sullen and exclusive nationalism of the +Jews could not have given rise to a gospel for all nations, nor could their +expectations of a temporal monarch have led to the story of a suffering +Messiah. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The O. T. Apocrypha shows how narrow was the outlook of the Jews. 2 Esdras 6:55, +56 says the Almighty has made the world <q>for <emph>our</emph> sakes</q>; other peoples, though +they <q>also come from Adam,</q> to the Eternal <q>are nothing, but be like unto spittle.</q> +The whole multitude of them are only, before him, <q>like a single foul drop that oozes +out of a cask</q> (C. Geikie, in S. S. Times). Christ's kingdom differed from that which +the Jews expected, both in its <emph>spirituality</emph> and its <emph>universality</emph> (Bruce, Apologetics, +3). There was no missionary impulse in the heathen world; on the other hand, +<pb n='157'/><anchor id='Pg157'/> +it was blasphemy for an ancient tribesman to make known his god to an outsider +(Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 106). The Apocryphal gospels show what sort of myths +the N. T. age would have elaborated: Out of a demoniac young woman Satan is said +to depart in the form of a young man (Bernard, in Literature of the Second Century, +99-136). +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The belief and propagation of such myths are inconsistent with +what we know of the sober characters and self-sacrificing lives of the +apostles. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The mythical theory cannot account for the acceptance of the +gospels among the Gentiles, who had none of the Jewish ideas and expectations. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) It cannot explain Christianity itself, with its belief in Christ's crucifixion +and resurrection, and the ordinances which commemorate these facts. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Witness Thomas's doubting, and Paul's shipwrecks and scourgings. <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>2 Pet. 1:16</emph>—οὐ +γὰρ σεσοφισμένοις μύθοις ἐξακολουθήσαντες = <q>we have not been on the false track +of myths artificially elaborated.</q> See F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 49-88. +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) See the two books entitled: If the Gospel Narratives are Mythical,—What Then? +and, But How,—if the Gospels are Historic? (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) As the existence of the American +Republic is proof that there was once a Revolutionary War, so the existence of +Christianity is proof of the death of Christ. The change from the seventh day to the +first, in Sabbath observance, could never have come about in a nation so Sabbatarian, +had not the first day been the celebration of an actual resurrection. Like the Jewish +Passover and our own Independence Day, Baptism and the Lord's Supper cannot be +accounted for, except as monuments and remembrances of historical facts at the +beginning of the Christian church. See Muir, on the Lord's Supper an abiding Witness +to the Death of Christ, In Present Day Tracts, 6: no. 36. On Strauss and his theory, see +Hackett, in Christian Rev., 48; Weiss, Life of Jesus, 155-163; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and +Christ. Belief, 379-425; Maclear, in Strivings for the Faith, 1-136; H. B. Smith, in Faith +and Philosophy, 442-468; Bayne, Review of Strauss's New Life, in Theol. Eclectic, 4:74; +Row, in Lectures on Modern Scepticism, 305-360; Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1871: art. by +Prof. W. A. Stevens; Burgess, Antiquity and Unity of Man, 263, 264; Curtis on Inspiration, +62-67; Alexander, Christ and Christianity, 92-126; A. P. Peabody, in Smith's +Bible Dict., 2:954-958. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2nd. The Tendency-theory of Baur (1792-1860).</head> + +<p> +This maintains that the gospels originated in the middle of the second +century, and were written under assumed names as a means of reconciling +opposing Jewish and Gentile tendencies in the church. <q>These great +national tendencies find their satisfaction, not in events corresponding to +them, but in the elaboration of conscious fictions.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Baur dates the fourth gospel at 160-170 A. D.; Matthew at 130; Luke at 150; Mark at +150-160. Baur never inquires who Christ was. He turns his attention from the facts to +the documents. If the documents be proved unhistorical, there is no need of examining +the facts, for there are no facts to examine. He indicates the presupposition of his +investigations, when he says: <q>The principal argument for the later origin of the +gospels must forever remain this, that separately, and still more when taken together, +they give an account of the life of Jesus which involves impossibilities</q>—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, miracles. +He would therefore remove their authorship far enough from Jesus' time to permit +regarding the miracles as inventions. Baur holds that in Christ were united the universalistic +spirit of the new religion, <emph>and</emph> the particularistic form of the Jewish Messianic +idea; some of his disciples laid emphasis on the one, some on the other; hence +first conflict, but finally reconciliation; see statement of the Tübingen theory and of +the way in which Baur was led to it, in Bruce, Apologetics, 360. E. G. Robinson interprets +Baur as follows: <q>Paul = Protestant; Peter = sacramentarian; James = ethical; +Paul + Peter + James = Christianity. Protestant preaching should dwell more on the +ethical—cases of conscience—and less on mere doctrine, such as regeneration and +justification.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='158'/><anchor id='Pg158'/> + +<p> +Baur was a stranger to the needs of his own soul, and so to the real character of the +gospel. One of his friends and advisers wrote, after his death, in terms that were +meant to be laudatory: <q>His was a completely objective nature. No trace of personal +needs or struggles is discernible in connection with his investigations of Christianity.</q> +The estimate of posterity is probably expressed in the judgment with regard to the +Tübingen school by Harnack: <q>The <emph>possible</emph> picture it sketched was not the <emph>real</emph>, and +the key with which it attempted to solve all problems did not suffice for the most +simple.... The Tübingen views have indeed been compelled to undergo very large +modifications. As regards the development of the church in the second century, it +may safely be said that the hypotheses of the Tübingen school have proved themselves +everywhere inadequate, very erroneous, and are to-day held by only a very few +scholars.</q> See Baur, Die kanonischen Evangelien; Canonical Gospels (Eng. transl.), +530; Supernatural Religion, 1:212-444 and vol. 2: Pfleiderer, Hibbert Lectures for 1885. +For accounts of Baur's position, see Herzog, Encyclopädie, art.: Baur; Clarke's transl. +of Hase's Life of Jesus, 34-36; Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought, 227, 228. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We object to the Tendency-theory of Baur, that +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The destructive criticism to which it subjects the gospels, if applied +to secular documents, would deprive us of any certain knowledge of the +past, and render all history impossible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The assumption of artifice is itself unfavorable to a candid examination of the documents. +A perverse acuteness can descry evidences of a hidden <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>animus</foreign> in the most +simple and ingenuous literary productions. Instance the philosophical interpretation +of <q>Jack and Jill.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The antagonistic doctrinal tendencies which it professes to find in +the several gospels are more satisfactorily explained as varied but consistent +aspects of the one system of truth held by all the apostles. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Baur exaggerates the doctrinal and official differences between the leading apostles. +Peter was not simply a Judaizing Christian, but was the first preacher to the Gentiles, +and his doctrine appears to have been subsequently influenced to a considerable extent +by Paul's (see Plumptre on 1 Pet., 68-69). Paul was not an exclusively Hellenizing +Christian, but invariably addressed the gospel to the Jews before he turned to the Gentiles. +The evangelists give pictures of Jesus from different points of view. As the +Parisian sculptor constructs his bust with the aid of a dozen photographs of his subject, +all taken from different points of view, so from the four portraits furnished us by +Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we are to construct the solid and symmetrical life of +Christ. The deeper reality which makes reconciliation of the different views possible +is the actual historical Christ. Marcus Dods, Expositor's Greek Testament, 1:675—<q>They +are not two Christs, but one, which the four Gospels depict: diverse as the +profile and front face, but one another's complement rather than contradiction.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Godet, Introd. to Gospel Collection, 272—Matthew shows the greatness of Jesus—his +full-length portrait; Mark his indefatigable activity; Luke his beneficent compassion; +John his essential divinity. Matthew first wrote Aramæan Logia. This was +translated into Greek and completed by a narrative of the ministry of Jesus for the +Greek churches founded by Paul. This translation was not made by Matthew and did +not make use of Mark (217-224). E. D. Burton: Matthew = fulfilment of past prophecy; +Mark = manifestation of present power. Matthew is argument from prophecy; Mark +is argument from miracle. Matthew, as prophecy, made most impression on Jewish +readers; Mark, as power, was best adapted to Gentiles. Prof. Burton holds Mark to be +based upon oral tradition alone; Matthew upon his Logia (his real earlier Gospel) and +other fragmentary notes; while Luke has a fuller origin in manuscripts and in Mark. +See Aids to the Study of German Theology, 148-155; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History +to Christ, 61. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It is incredible that productions of such literary power and lofty +religious teaching as the gospels should have sprung up in the middle of +the second century, or that, so springing up, they should have been published +under assumed names and for covert ends. +</p> + +<pb n='159'/><anchor id='Pg159'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The general character of the literature of the second century is illustrated by Ignatius's +fanatical desire for martyrdom, the value ascribed by Hermas to ascetic rigor, +the insipid allegories of Barnabas, Clement of Rome's belief in the phœnix, and the +absurdities of the Apocryphal Gospels. The author of the fourth gospel among the +writers of the second century would have been a mountain among mole-hills. Wynne, +Literature of the Second Century, 60—<q>The apostolic and the sub-apostolic writers differ +from each other as a nugget of pure gold differs from a block of quartz with veins +of the precious metal gleaming through it.</q> Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person Christ, 1:1:92—<q>Instead +of the writers of the second century marking an advance on the apostolic +age, or developing the germ given them by the apostles, the second century shows great +retrogression,—its writers were not able to retain or comprehend all that had been +given them.</q> Martineau, Seat of Authority, 291—<q>Writers not only barbarous in +speech and rude in art, but too often puerile in conception, passionate in temper, and +credulous in belief. The legends of Papias, the visions of Hermas, the imbecility of +Irenæus, the fury of Tertullian, the rancor and indelicacy of Jerome, the stormy intolerance +of Augustine, cannot fail to startle and repel the student; and, if he turns to the +milder Hippolytus, he is introduced to a brood of thirty heresies which sadly dissipate his +dream of the unity of the church.</q> We can apply to the writers of the second century +the question of R. G. Ingersoll in the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy: <q>Is it possible +that Bacon left the best children of his brain on Shakespeare's doorstep, and kept only +the deformed ones at home?</q> On the Apocryphal Gospels, see Cowper, in Strivings +for the Faith, 73-108. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The theory requires us to believe in a moral anomaly, namely, that +a faithful disciple of Christ in the second century could be guilty of fabricating +a life of his master, and of claiming authority for it on the ground +that the author had been a companion of Christ or his apostles. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>A genial set of Jesuitical religionists</q>—with mind and heart enough to write the +gospel according to John, and who at the same time have cold-blooded sagacity enough +to keep out of their writings every trace of the developments of church authority +belonging to the second century. The newly discovered <q>Teaching of the Twelve +Apostles,</q> if dating from the early part of that century, shows that such a combination +is impossible. The critical theories assume that one who knew Christ as a man +could not possibly also regard him as God. Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 12—<q>If St. +John wrote, it is not possible to say that the genius of St. Paul foisted upon the church +a conception which was strange to the original apostles.</q> Fairbairn has well shown +that if Christianity had been simply the ethical teaching of the human Jesus, it would +have vanished from the earth like the sects of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees; if +on the other hand it had been simply the Logos-doctrine, the doctrine of a divine +Christ, it would have passed away like the speculations of Plato or Aristotle; because +Christianity unites the idea of the eternal Son of God with that of the incarnate Son of +man, it is fitted to be and it has become an universal religion; see Fairbairn, Philosophy +of the Christian Religion, 4, 15—<q>Without the personal charm of the historical +Jesus, the œcumenical creeds would never have been either formulated or tolerated, +and without the metaphysical conception of Christ the Christian religion would long ago +have ceased to live.... It is not Jesus of Nazareth who has so powerfully entered into +history: it is the deified Christ who has been believed, loved and obeyed as the Savior +of the world.... The two parts of Christian doctrine are combined in the one name +<q>Jesus Christ.</q></q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) This theory cannot account for the universal acceptance of the gospels +at the end of the second century, among widely separated communities +where reverence for writings of the apostles was a mark of orthodoxy, +and where the Gnostic heresies would have made new documents instantly +liable to suspicion and searching examination. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Abbot, Genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, 52, 80, 88, 89. The Johannine doctrine of +the Logos, if first propounded in the middle of the second century, would have ensured +the instant rejection of that gospel by the Gnostics, who ascribed creation, not to the +Logos, but to successive <q>Æons.</q> How did the Gnostics, without <q>peep or mutter,</q> +come to accept as genuine what had only in their own time been first sprung upon the +<pb n='160'/><anchor id='Pg160'/> +churches? While Basilides (130) and Valentinus (150), the Gnostics, both quote from +the fourth gospel, they do not dispute its genuineness or suggest that it was of recent +origin. Bruce, in his Apologetics, says of Baur <q>He believed in the all-sufficiency of +the Hegelian theory of development through antagonism. He saw tendency everywhere. +Anything additional, putting more contents into the person and teaching of +Jesus than suits the initial stage of development, must be reckoned spurious. If we +find Jesus in any of the gospels claiming to be a supernatural being, such texts can +with the utmost confidence be set aside as spurious, for such a thought could not +belong to the initial stage of Christianity.</q> But such a conception certainly existed in +the second century, and it directly antagonized the speculations of the Gnostics. F. +W. Farrar, on <emph>Hebrews 1:2</emph>—<q>The word <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>æon</foreign> was used by the later Gnostics to describe +the various emanations by which they tried at once to widen and to bridge over the +gulf between the human and the divine. Over that imaginary chasm John threw the +arch of the Incarnation, when he wrote: <emph><q>The Word became flesh</q> (John 1:14)</emph>.</q> A document +which so contradicted the Gnostic teachings could not in the second century have been +quoted by the Gnostics themselves without dispute as to its genuineness, if it had not +been long recognized in the churches as a work of the apostle John. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) The acknowledgment by Baur that the epistles to the Romans, Galatians +and Corinthians were written by Paul in the first century is fatal to +his theory, since these epistles testify not only to miracles at the period +at which they were written, but to the main events of Jesus' life and to the +miracle of his resurrection, as facts already long acknowledged in the +Christian church. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Baur, Paulus der Apostel, 276—<q>There never has been the slightest suspicion of +unauthenticity cast on these epistles (Gal., 1 and 2 Cor., Rom.), and they bear so incontestably +the character of Pauline originality, that there is no conceivable ground for +the assertion of critical doubts in their case.</q> Baur, in discussing the appearance of +Christ to Paul on the way to Damascus, explains the outward from the inward: Paul +translated intense and sudden conviction of the truth of the Christian religion into an +outward scene. But this cannot explain the hearing of the outward sound by Paul's +companions. On the evidential value of the epistles here mentioned, see Lorimer, in +Strivings for the Faith, 109-144; Howson, in Present Day Tracts, 4: no. 24; Row, Bampton +Lectures for 1877:289-356. On Baur and his theory in general, see Weiss, Life of +Jesus, 1:157 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christ. Belief, 504-549; Hutton, Essays, 1:176-215; +Theol. Eclectic, 5:1-42; Auberlen, Div. Revelation; Bib. Sac., 19:75; Answers +to Supernatural Religion, in Westcott, Hist. N. T. Canon, 4th ed., Introd.; Lightfoot, in +Contemporary Rev., Dec. 1874, and Jan. 1875; Salmon, Introd. to N. T., 6-31; A. B. +Bruce, in Present Day Tracts, 7: no. 38. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3d. The Romance-theory of Renan (1823-1892).</head> + +<p> +This theory admits a basis of truth in the gospels and holds that they +all belong to the century following Jesus' death. <q>According to</q> Matthew, +Mark, etc., however, means only that Matthew, Mark, etc., wrote +these gospels in substance. Renan claims that the facts of Jesus' life were +so sublimated by enthusiasm, and so overlaid with pious fraud, that the gospels +in their present form cannot be accepted as genuine,—in short, the +gospels are to be regarded as historical romances which have only a foundation +in fact. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +<p> +The <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>animus</foreign> of this theory is plainly shown in Renan's Life of Jesus, preface to 13th +ed.—<q>If miracles and the inspiration of certain books are realities, my method is +detestable. If miracles and the inspiration of books are beliefs without reality, my +method is a good one. But the question of the supernatural is decided for us with perfect +certainty by the single consideration that there is no room for believing in a thing +of which the world offers no experimental trace.</q> <q>On the whole,</q> says Renan, <q>I +admit as authentic the four canonical gospels. All, in my opinion, date from the first +century, and the authors are, generally speaking, those to whom they are attributed.</q> +He regards Gal., 1 and 2 Cor., and Rom., as <q>indisputable and undisputed.</q> He speaks +<pb n='161'/><anchor id='Pg161'/> +of them as <q>being texts of an absolute authenticity, of complete sincerity, and without +legends</q> (Les Apôtres, xxix; Les Évangiles, xi). Yet he denies to Jesus <q>sincerity +with himself</q>; attributes to him <q>innocent artifice</q> and the toleration of pious fraud, +as for example in the case of the stories of Lazarus and of his own resurrection. <q>To +conceive the good is not sufficient: it must be made to succeed; to accomplish this, less +pure paths must be followed.... Not by any fault of his own, his conscience lost +somewhat of its original purity,—his mission overwhelmed him.... Did he regret +his too lofty nature, and, victim of his own greatness, mourn that he had not remained +a simple artizan?</q> So Renan <q>pictures Christ's later life as a misery and a lie, yet he +requests us to bow before this sinner and before his superior, Sakya-Mouni, as demigods</q> +(see Nicoll, The Church's One Foundation, 62, 63). Of the highly wrought imagination +of Mary Magdalene, he says: <q>O divine power of love! sacred moments, in which +the passion of one whose senses were deceived gives us a resuscitated God!</q> See +Renan, Life of Jesus, 21. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +To this Romance-theory of Renan, we object that +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It involves an arbitrary and partial treatment of the Christian documents. +The claim that one writer not only borrowed from others, but +interpolated <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ad libitum</foreign>, is contradicted by the essential agreement of the +manuscripts as quoted by the Fathers, and as now extant. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Renan, according to Mair, Christian Evidences, 153, dates Matthew at 84 A. D.; Mark +at 76; Luke at 94; John at 125. These dates mark a considerable retreat from the +advanced positions taken by Baur. Mair, in his chapter on Recent Reverses in Negative +Criticism, attributes this result to the late discoveries with regard to the Epistle of +Barnabas, Hippolytus's Refutation of all Heresies, the Clementine Homilies, and +Tatian's Diatessaron: <q>According to Baur and his immediate followers, we have less +than one quarter of the N. T. belonging to the first century. According to Hilgenfeld, +the present head of the Baur school, we have somewhat less than three quarters belonging +to the first century, while substantially the same thing may be said with regard to +Holzmann. According to Renan, we have distinctly more than three quarters of the +N. T. falling within the first century, and therefore within the apostolic age. This +surely indicates a very decided and extraordinary retreat since the time of Baur's grand +assault, that is, within the last fifty years.</q> We may add that the concession of authorship +within the apostolic age renders nugatory Renan's hypothesis that the N. T. documents +have been so enlarged by pious fraud that they cannot be accepted as trustworthy +accounts of such events as miracles. The oral tradition itself had attained so fixed a +form that the many manuscripts used by the Fathers were in substantial agreement in +respect to these very events, and oral tradition in the East hands down without serious +alteration much longer narratives than those of our gospels. The Pundita Ramabai +can repeat after the lapse of twenty years portions of the Hindu sacred books exceeding +in amount the whole contents of our Old Testament. Many cultivated men in +Athens knew by heart all the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. Memory and reverence +alike kept the gospel narratives free from the corruption which Renan supposes. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It attributes to Christ and to the apostles an alternate fervor of +romantic enthusiasm and a false pretense of miraculous power which are +utterly irreconcilable with the manifest sobriety and holiness of their lives +and teachings. If Jesus did not work miracles, he was an impostor. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On Ernest Renan, His Life and the Life of Jesus, see A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, +332-363, especially 356—<q>Renan attributes the origin of Christianity to the predominance +in Palestine of a constitutional susceptibility to mystic excitements. Christ is to +him the incarnation of sympathy and tears, a being of tender impulses and passionate +ardors, whose native genius it was to play upon the hearts of men. Truth or falsehood +made little difference to him; anything that would comfort the poor, or touch the finer +feelings of humanity, he availed himself of; ecstasies, visions, melting moods, these +were the secrets of his power. Religion was a beneficent superstition, a sweet delusion—excellent +as a balm and solace for the ignorant crowd, who never could be philosophers +if they tried. And so the gospel river, as one has said, is traced back to a fountain +of weeping men and women whose brains had oozed out at their eyes, and the perfection +of spirituality is made to be a sort of maudlin monasticism.... How different +<pb n='162'/><anchor id='Pg162'/> +from the strong and holy love of Christ, which would save men only by bringing +them to the truth, and which claims men's imitation only because, without love for God +and for the soul, a man is without truth. How inexplicable from this view the fact +that a pure Christianity has everywhere quickened the intellect of the nations, and +that every revival of it, as at the Reformation, has been followed by mighty forward +leaps of civilization. Was Paul a man carried away by mystic dreams and irrational +enthusiasms? Let the keen dialectic skill of his epistles and his profound grasp of the +great matters of revelation answer. Has the Christian church been a company of puling +sentimentalists? Let the heroic deaths for the truth suffered by the martyrs witness. +Nay, he must have a low idea of his kind, and a yet lower idea of the God who +made them, who can believe that the noblest spirits of the race have risen to greatness +by abnegating will and reason, and have gained influence over all ages by resigning +themselves to semi-idiocy.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It fails to account for the power and progress of the gospel, as a +system directly opposed to men's natural tastes and prepossessions—a +system which substitutes truth for romance and law for impulse. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 358—<q>And if the later triumphs of Christianity +are inexplicable upon the theory of Renan, how can we explain its founding? The +sweet swain of Galilee, beloved by women for his beauty, fascinating the unlettered +crowd by his gentle speech and his poetic ideals, giving comfort to the sorrowing and +hope to the poor, credited with supernatural power which at first he thinks it not +worth while to deny and finally gratifies the multitude by pretending to exercise, +roused by opposition to polemics and invective until the delightful young rabbi +becomes a gloomy giant, an intractable fanatic, a fierce revolutionist, whose denunciation +of the powers that be brings him to the Cross,—what is there in <emph>him</emph> to account +for the moral wonder which we call Christianity and the beginnings of its empire in the +world? Neither delicious pastorals like those of Jesus' first period, nor apocalyptic +fevers like those of his second period, according to Renan's gospel, furnish any rational +explanation of that mighty movement which has swept through the earth and has +revolutionized the faith of mankind.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Berdoe, Browning, 47—<q>If Christ were not God, his life at that stage of the world's +history could by no possibility have had the vitalizing force and love-compelling power +that Renan's pages everywhere disclose. Renan has strengthened faith in Christ's +deity while laboring to destroy it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Renan, in discussing Christ's appearance to Paul on the way to Damascus, explains +the inward from the outward, thus precisely reversing the conclusion of Baur. A sudden +storm, a flash of lightning, a sudden attack of ophthalmic fever, Paul took as an +appearance from heaven. But we reply that so keen an observer and reasoner could not +have been thus deceived. Nothing could have made him the apostle to the Gentiles but +a sight of the glorified Christ and the accompanying revelation of the holiness of God, +his own sin, the sacrifice of the Son of God, its universal efficacy, the obligation laid +upon him to proclaim it to the ends of the earth. For reviews of Renan, see Hutton, +Essays, 261-281, and Contemp. Thought and Thinkers, 1:227-234; H. B. Smith, Faith and +Philosophy, 401-441; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt, 425-447; Pressensé, in Theol. Eclectic, +1:199; Uhlhorn, Mod. Representations of Life of Jesus, 1-33; Bib. Sac, 22:207; 23:353, +529; Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 16, and 4: no. 21; E. G. Robinson, Christian Evidences, +43-48; A. H. Strong, Sermon before Baptist World Congress, 1905. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4th. The Development-theory of Harnack (born 1851).</head> + +<p> +This holds Christianity to be a historical development from germs which +were devoid of both dogma and miracle. Jesus was a teacher of ethics, +and the original gospel is most clearly represented by the Sermon on the +Mount. Greek influence, and especially that of the Alexandrian philosophy, +added to this gospel a theological and supernatural element, and so +changed Christianity from a life into a doctrine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Harnack dates Matthew at 70-75; Mark at 65-70; Luke at 78-93; the fourth gospel at +80-110. He regards both the fourth gospel and the book of Revelation as the works, +not of John the Apostle, but of John the Presbyter. He separates the prologue of the +<pb n='163'/><anchor id='Pg163'/> +fourth gospel from the gospel itself, and considers the prologue as a preface added +after its original composition in order to enable the Hellenistic reader to understand it. +<q>The gospel itself,</q> says Harnack, <q>contains no Logos-idea; it did not develop out of +a Logos-idea, such as flourished at Alexandria; it only connects itself with such an +idea. The gospel itself is based upon the historic Christ; he is the subject of all its +statements. This historical trait can in no way be dissolved by any kind of speculation. +The memory of what was actually historical was still too powerful to admit at this point +any Gnostic influences. The Logos-idea of the prologue is the Logos of Alexandrine +Judaism, the Logos of Philo, and it is derived ultimately from the 'Son of man' in the +book of Daniel.... The fourth gospel, which does not proceed from the Apostle +John and does not so claim, cannot be used as a historical source in the ordinary sense of +that word.... The author has managed with sovereign freedom; has transposed occurrences +and has put them in a light that is foreign to them; has of his own accord composed +the discourses, and has illustrated lofty thoughts by inventing situations for +them. Difficult as it is to recognize, an actual tradition in his work is not wholly lacking. +For the history of Jesus, however, it can hardly anywhere be taken into account; +only little can be taken from it, and that with caution.... On the other hand it is a +source of the first rank for the answer of the question what living views of the person of +Jesus, what light and what warmth, the gospel has brought into being.</q> See Harnack's +article in Zeitschrift für Theol. u. Kirche, 2:189-231, and his Wesen des Christenthums, +13. Kaftan also, who belongs to the same Ritschlian school with Harnack, tells us in +his Truth of the Christian Religion, 1:97, that as the result of the Logos-speculation, +<q>the centre of gravity, instead of being placed in the historical Christ who founded +the kingdom of God, is placed in the Christ who as eternal Logos of God was the +mediator in the creation of the world.</q> This view is elaborated by Hatch in his Hibbert +Lectures for 1888, on the Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian +Church. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We object to the Development-theory of Harnack, that +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Sermon on the Mount is not the sum of the gospel, nor its +original form. Mark is the most original of the gospels, yet Mark omits +the Sermon on the Mount, and Mark is preëminently the gospel of the +miracle-worker. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) All four gospels lay the emphasis, not on Jesus' life and ethical +teaching, but on his death and resurrection. Matthew implies Christ's +deity when it asserts his absolute knowledge of the Father (11:27), his +universal judgeship (25:32), his supreme authority (28:18), and his +omnipresence (28:20), while the phrase <q>Son of man</q> implies that he is +also <q>Son of God.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 11:27—<q>All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; +neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him</q></emph>; <emph>25:32—<q>and +before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the +sheep from the goats</q></emph>; <emph>28:18—<q>All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth</q></emph>; <emph>28:20—<q>lo, I +am with you always, even unto the end of the world.</q></emph> These sayings of Jesus in Matthew's gospel +show that the conception of Christ's greatness was not peculiar to John: <emph><q>I am</q></emph> transcends +time; <emph><q>with you</q></emph> transcends space. Jesus speaks <q>sub specie eternitatis</q>; his +utterance is equivalent to that of <emph>John 8:58—<q>Before Abraham was born, I am,</q></emph> and to that of +<emph>Hebrews 13:8—<q>Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.</q></emph> He is, as Paul declares in +<emph>Eph. 1:23</emph>, one <emph><q>that filleth all in all,</q></emph> that is, who is omnipresent. +</p> + +<p> +A. H. Strong, Philos. and Religion, 206—The phrase <q>Son of man</q> intimates that +Christ was more than man: <q>Suppose I were to go about proclaiming myself <q>Son of +man.</q> Who does not see that it would be mere impertinence, unless I claimed to be +something more. <q>Son of Man? But what of that? Cannot every human being call +himself the same?</q> When one takes the title <q>Son of man</q> for his characteristic designation, +as Jesus did, he implies that there is something strange in his being Son of man; +that this is not his original condition and dignity; that it is condescension on his part +to be Son of man. In short, when Christ calls himself Son of man, it implies that he +has come from a higher level of being to inhabit this low earth of ours. And so, when +we are asked <q>What think ye of the Christ? whose son is he?</q> we must answer, not +<pb n='164'/><anchor id='Pg164'/> +simply, He is Son of man, but also, He is Son of God.</q> On Son of man, see Driver; on +Son of God, see Sanday; both in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. Sanday: <q>The +Son is so called primarily as incarnate. But that which is the essence of the Incarnation +must needs be also larger than the Incarnation. It must needs have its roots in +the eternity of Godhead.</q> Gore, Incarnation, 65, 73—<q>Christ, the final Judge, of the +synoptics, is not dissociable from the divine, eternal Being, of the fourth gospel.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The preëxistence and atonement of Christ cannot be regarded as +accretions upon the original gospel, since these find expression in Paul +who wrote before any of our evangelists, and in his epistles anticipated the +Logos-doctrine of John. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) We may grant that Greek influence, through the Alexandrian philosophy, +helped the New Testament writers to discern what was already +present in the life and work and teaching of Jesus; but, like the microscope +which discovers but does not create, it added nothing to the substance of +the faith. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Gore, Incarnation, 62—<q>The divinity, incarnation, resurrection of Christ were not +an accretion upon the original belief of the apostles and their first disciples, for these +are all recognized as uncontroverted matters of faith in the four great epistles of Paul, +written at a date when the greater part of those who had seen the risen Christ were +still alive.</q> The Alexandrian philosophy was not the source of apostolic doctrine, but +only the form in which that doctrine was cast, the light thrown upon it which brought +out its meaning. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 146—<q>When we come to John's +gospel, therefore, we find in it the mere unfolding of truth that for substance had +been in the world for at least sixty years.... If the Platonizing philosophy of Alexandria +assisted in this genuine development of Christian doctrine, then the Alexandrian +philosophy was a providential help to inspiration. The microscope does not invent; it +only discovers. Paul and John did not add to the truth of Christ; their philosophical +equipment was only a microscope which brought into clear view the truth that was +there already.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:126—<q>The metaphysical conception of the Logos, as +immanent in the world and ordering it according to law, was filled with religious and +moral contents. In Jesus the cosmical principle of nature became a religious principle +of salvation.</q> See Kilpatrick's article on Philosophy, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary. +Kilpatrick holds that Harnack ignores the self-consciousness of Jesus; does not fairly +interpret the Acts in its mention of the early worship of Jesus by the church before +Greek philosophy had influenced it; refers to the intellectual peculiarities of the N. T. +writers conceptions which Paul insists are simply the faith of all Christian people as +such; forgets that the Christian idea of union with God secured through the atoning +and reconciling work of a personal Redeemer utterly transcended Greek thought, and +furnished the solution of the problem after which Greek philosophy was vainly groping. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Though Mark says nothing of the virgin-birth because his story is +limited to what the apostles had witnessed of Jesus' deeds, Matthew apparently +gives us Joseph's story and Luke gives Mary's story—both stories +naturally published only after Jesus' resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) The larger understanding of doctrine after Jesus' death was itself +predicted by our Lord (John 16:12). The Holy Spirit was to bring his +teachings to remembrance, and to guide into all the truth (16:13), and +the apostles were to continue the work of teaching which he had begun +(Acts 1:1). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 16:12, 13—<q>I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the +Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 1:1—<q>The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, +concerning all that Jesus began to do and to teach.</q></emph> A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 146—<q>That +the beloved disciple, after a half century of meditation upon what he had seen and +heard of God manifest in the flesh, should have penetrated more deeply into the meaning +of that wonderful revelation is not only not surprising,—it is precisely what Jesus +<pb n='165'/><anchor id='Pg165'/> +himself foretold. Our Lord had many things to say to his disciples, but then they +could not bear them. He promised that the Holy Spirit should bring to their remembrance +both himself and his words, and should lead them into all the truth. And this +is the whole secret of what are called accretions to original Christianity. So far as +they are contained in Scripture, they are inspired discoveries and unfoldings, not mere +speculations and inventions. They are not additions, but elucidations, not vain +imaginings, but correct interpretations.... When the later theology, then, throws +out the supernatural and dogmatic, as coming not from Jesus but from Paul's epistles +and from the fourth gospel, our claim is that Paul and John are only inspired and +authoritative interpreters of Jesus, seeing themselves and making us see the fulness of +the Godhead that dwelt in him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +While Harnack, in our judgment, errs in his view that Paul contributed to the gospel +elements which it did not originally possess, he shows us very clearly many of the +elements in that gospel which he was the first to recognize. In his Wesen des Christenthums, +111, he tells us that a few years ago a celebrated Protestant theologian declared +that Paul, with his Rabbinical theology, was the destroyer of the Christian religion. +Others have regarded him as the founder of that religion. But the majority have +seen in him the apostle who best understood his Lord and did most to continue his +work. Paul, as Harnack maintains, first comprehended the gospel definitely: (1) as +an accomplished redemption and a present salvation—the crucified and risen Christ +as giving access to God and righteousness and peace therewith; (2) as something new, +which does away with the religion of the law; (3) as meant for all, and therefore for +Gentiles also, indeed, as superseding Judaism; (4) as expressed in terms which are not +simply Greek but also human,—Paul made the gospel comprehensible to the world. +Islam, rising in Arabia, is an Arabian religion still. Buddhism remains an Indian +religion. Christianity is at home in all lands. Paul put new life into the Roman +empire, and inaugurated the Christian culture of the West. He turned a local into a +universal religion. His influence however, according to Harnack, tended to the undue +exaltation of organization and dogma and O. T. inspiration—points in which, in our +judgment, Paul took sober middle ground and saved Christian truth for the world. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Genuineness of the Books of the Old Testament.</head> + +<p> +Since nearly one half of the Old Testament is of anonymous authorship +and certain of its books may be attributed to definite historic characters +only by way of convenient classification or of literary personification, we +here mean by genuineness honesty of purpose and freedom from anything +counterfeit or intentionally deceptive so far as respects the age or +the authorship of the documents. +</p> + +<p> +We show the genuineness of the Old Testament books: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) From the witness of the New Testament, in which all but six books +of the Old Testament are either quoted or alluded to as genuine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The N. T. shows coincidences of language with the O. T. Apocryphal books, but it +contains only one direct quotation from them; while, with the exception of Judges, +Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah, every book in the Hebrew canon +is used either for illustration or proof. The single Apocryphal quotation is found in <emph>Jude 14</emph> +and is in all probability taken from the book of Enoch. Although Volkmar puts the +date of this book at 132 A. D., and although some critics hold that Jude quoted only +the same primitive tradition of which the author of the book of Enoch afterwards +made use, the weight of modern scholarship inclines to the opinion that the book +itself was written as early as 170-70 B. C., and that Jude quoted from it; see Hastings' +Bible Dictionary: Book of Enoch; Sanday, Bampton Lect. on Inspiration, 95. <q>If +Paul could quote from Gentile poets (<emph>Acts 17:28</emph>; <emph>Titus 1:12</emph>), it is hard to understand why +Jude could not cite a work which was certainly in high standing among the faithful</q>; +see Schodde, Book of Enoch, 41, with the Introd. by Ezra Abbot. While <emph>Jude 14</emph> gives +us the only direct and express quotation from an Apocryphal book, <emph>Jude 6</emph> and <emph>9</emph> contain +allusions to the Book of Enoch and to the Assumption of Moses; see Charles, +Assumption of Moses, 62. In <emph>Hebrews 1:3</emph>, we have words taken from Wisdom 7:26; +and <emph>Hebrews 11:34-38</emph> is a reminiscence of 1 Maccabees. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='166'/><anchor id='Pg166'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) From the testimony of Jewish authorities, ancient and modern, +who declare the same books to be sacred, and only the same books, that +are now comprised in our Old Testament Scriptures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Josephus enumerates twenty-two of these books <q>which are justly accredited</q> (omit +θεῖα—Niese, and Hastings' Dict., 3:607). Our present Hebrew Bible makes twenty-four, +by separating Ruth from Judges, and Lamentations from Jeremiah. See Josephus, +Against Apion, 1:8; Smith's Bible Dictionary, article on the Canon, 1:359, 360. Philo +(born 20 B. C.) never quotes an Apocryphal book, although he does quote from nearly +all the books of the O. T.; see Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture. George Adam Smith, +Modern Criticism and Preaching, 7—<q>The theory which ascribed the Canon of the O. +T. to a single decision of the Jewish church in the days of its inspiration is not a theory +supported by facts. The growth of the O. T. Canon was very gradual. Virtually it +began in 621 B. C., with the acceptance by all Judah of Deuteronomy, and the adoption +of the whole Law, or first five books of the O. T., under Nehemiah in 445 B. C. +Then came the prophets before 200 B. C., and the Hagiographa from a century to two +centuries later. The strict definition of the last division was not complete by the time +of Christ. Christ seems to testify to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms; yet +neither Christ nor his apostles make any quotation from Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, +Canticles, or Ecclesiastes, the last of which books were not yet recognized by all the +Jewish schools. But while Christ is the chief authority for the O. T., he was also its +first critic. He rejected some parts of the Law and was indifferent to many others. +He enlarged the sixth and seventh commandments, and reversed the eye for an eye, +and the permission of divorce; touched the leper, and reckoned all foods lawful; +broke away from literal observance of the Sabbath-day; left no commands about +sacrifice, temple-worship, circumcision, but, by institution of the New Covenant, abrogated +these sacraments of the Old. The apostles appealed to extra-canonical writings.</q> +Gladden, Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 68-96—<q>Doubts were entertained in our Lord's +day as to the canonicity of several parts of the O. T., especially Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, +Song of Solomon, Esther.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) From the testimony of the Septuagint translation, dating from the +first half of the third century, or from 280 to 180 B. C. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +MSS. of the Septuagint contain, indeed, the O. T. Apocrypha, but the writers of the +latter do not recognize their own work as on a level with the canonical Scriptures, +which they regard as distinct from all other books (Ecclesiasticus, prologue, and +48:24; also 24:23-27; 1 Mac. 12:9; 2 Mac. 6:23; 1 Esd. 1:28; 6:1; Baruch 2:21). So +both ancient and modern Jews. See Bissell, in Lange's Commentary on the Apocrypha, +Introduction, 44. In the prologue to the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, we read +of <q>the Law and the Prophets and the rest of the books,</q> which shows that as early +as 130 B. C., the probable date of Ecclesiasticus, a threefold division of the Jewish +sacred books was recognized. That the author, however, did not conceive of these +books as constituting a completed canon seems evident from his assertion in this connection +that his grandfather Jesus also wrote. 1 Mac. 12:9 (80-90 B. C.) speaks of <q>the +sacred books which are now in our hands.</q> Hastings, Bible Dictionary, 3:611—<q>The +O. T. was the result of a gradual process which began with the sanction of the Hexateuch +by Ezra and Nehemiah, and practically closed with the decisions of the Council of +Jamnia</q>—Jamnia is the ancient Jabneh, 7 miles south by west of Tiberias, where met +a council of rabbins at some time between 90 to 118 A. D. This Council decided in +favor of Canticles and Ecclesiastes, and closed the O. T. Canon. +</p> + +<p> +The Greek version of the Pentateuch which forms a part of the Septuagint is said by +Josephus to have been made in the reign and by the order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, +King of Egypt, about 270 or 280 B. C. <q>The legend is that it was made by seventy-two +persons in seventy-two days. It is supposed, however, by modern critics that this +version of the several books is the work not only of different hands but of separate +times. It is probable that at first only the Pentateuch was translated, and the remaining +books gradually; but the translation is believed to have been completed by the +second century B. C.</q> (Century Dictionary, <hi rend='italic'>in voce</hi>). It therefore furnishes an important +witness to the genuineness of our O. T. documents. Driver, Introd. to O. T. Lit., +xxxi—<q>For the opinion, often met with in modern books, that the Canon of the O. T. +was closed by Ezra, or in Ezra's time, there is no foundation in antiquity whatever.... +All that can reasonably be treated as historical in the accounts of Ezra's +literary labors is limited to the Law.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='167'/><anchor id='Pg167'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) From indications that soon after the exile, and so early as the +times of Ezra and Nehemiah (500-450 B. C.), the Pentateuch together with +the book of Joshua was not only in existence but was regarded as authoritative. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +2 Mac, 2:13-15 intimates that Nehemiah founded a library, and there is a tradition +that a <q>Great Synagogue</q> was gathered in his time to determine the Canon. But +Hastings' Dictionary, 4:644, asserts that <q>the Great Synagogue was originally a meeting, +and not an institution. It met once for all, and all that is told about it, except +what we read in Nehemiah, is pure fable of the later Jews.</q> In like manner no dependence +is to be placed upon the tradition that Ezra miraculously restored the ancient +Scriptures that had been lost during the exile. Clement of Alexandria says: <q>Since +the Scriptures perished in the Captivity of Nebuchadnezzar, Esdras (the Greek form of +Ezra) the Levite, the priest, in the time of Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, having +become inspired in the exercise of prophecy, restored again the whole of the ancient +Scriptures.</q> But the work now divided into 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, +mentions Darius Codomannus (<emph>Neh. 12:22</emph>), whose date is 336 B. C. The utmost the tradition +proves is that about 300 B. C. the Pentateuch was in some sense attributed to Moses; +see Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 35; Bib. Sac., 1863:381, 660, 799; Smith, Bible Dict., art.: +Pentateuch; Theological Eclectic, 6:215; Bissell, Hist. Origin of the Bible, 398-403. +On the Men of the Great Synagogue, see Wright, Ecclesiastes, 5-12, 475-477. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) From the testimony of the Samaritan Pentateuch, dating from the +time of Ezra and Nehemiah (500-450 B. C.). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Samaritans had been brought by the king of Assyria from <emph><q>Babylon, and from Cuthah +and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim</q> (2 K. 17:6, 24, 26)</emph>, to take the place of the people of +Israel whom the king had carried away captive to his own land. The colonists had +brought their heathen gods with them, and the incursions of wild beasts which the +intermission of tillage occasioned gave rise to the belief that the God of Israel was against +them. One of the captive Jewish priests was therefore sent to teach them <emph><q>the law of the +god of the land</q></emph> and he <emph><q>taught them how they should fear Jehovah</q> (2 K. 17:27, 28)</emph>. The result was +that they adopted the Jewish ritual, but combined the worship of Jehovah with that of +their graven images (<emph>verse 33</emph>). When the Jews returned from Babylon and began to +rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the Samaritans offered their aid, but this aid was indignantly +refused (<emph>Ezra 4</emph> and <emph>Nehemiah 4</emph>). Hostility arose between Jews and Samaritans—a +hostility which continued not only to the time of Christ (<emph>John 4:9</emph>), but even to the +present day. Since the Samaritan Pentateuch substantially coincides with the Hebrew +Pentateuch, it furnishes us with a definite past date at which it certainly existed in +nearly its present form. It witnesses to the existence of our Pentateuch in essentially +its present form as far back as the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. +</p> + +<p> +Green, Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch, 44, 45—<q>After being repulsed by the Jews, +the Samaritans, to substantiate their claim of being sprung from ancient Israel, eagerly +accepted the Pentateuch which was brought them by a renegade priest.</q> W. Robertson +Smith, in Encyc. Brit., 21:244—<q>The priestly law, which is throughout based on the +practice of the priests of Jerusalem before the captivity, was reduced to form after the +exile, and was first published by Ezra as the law of the rebuilt temple of Zion. The +Samaritans must therefore have derived their Pentateuch from the Jews after Ezra's +reforms, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, after 444 B. C. Before that time Samaritanism cannot have existed in +a form at all similar to that which we know; but there must have been a community +ready to accept the Pentateuch.</q> See Smith's Bible Dictionary, art.: Samaritan Pentateuch; +Hastings, Bible Dictionary, art.: Samaria; Stanley Leathes, Structure of the +O. T., 1-41. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) From the finding of <q>the book of the law</q> in the temple, in the +eighteenth year of King Josiah, or in 621 B. C. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>2 K. 22:8—<q>And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law +in the house of Jehovah.</q></emph> <emph>23:2—<q>The book of the covenant</q></emph> was read before the people by the +king and proclaimed to be the law of the land. Curtis, in Hastings' Bible Dict., 3:596—<q>The +earliest written law or book of divine instruction of whose introduction +or enactment an authentic account is given, was Deuteronomy or its main portion, +represented as found in the temple in the 18th year of king Josiah (B. C. 621) and +<pb n='168'/><anchor id='Pg168'/> +proclaimed by the king as the law of the land. From that time forward Israel had +a written law which the pious believer was commanded to ponder day and night (<emph>Joshua +1:8</emph>; <emph>Ps. 1:2</emph>); and thus the Torah, as sacred literature, formally commenced in Israel. +This law aimed at a right application of Mosaic principles.</q> Ryle, in Hastings' Bible +Dict., 1:602—<q>The law of Deuteronomy represents an expansion and development of +the ancient code contained in <emph>Exodus 20-23</emph>, and precedes the final formulation of the +priestly ritual, which only received its ultimate form in the last period of revising the +structure of the Pentateuch.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Andrew Harper, on Deuteronomy, in Expositor's Bible: <q>Deuteronomy does not +claim to have been written by Moses. He is spoken of in the third person in the introduction +and historical framework, while the speeches of Moses are in the first person. +In portions where the author speaks for himself, the phrase 'beyond Jordan' means +east of Jordan; in the speeches of Moses the phrase <q>beyond Jordan</q> means west of +Jordan; and the only exception is <emph>Deut. 3:8</emph>, which cannot originally have been part of +the speech of Moses. But the style of both parts is the same, and if the 3rd person parts +are by a later author, the 1st person parts are by a later author also. Both differ from +other speeches of Moses in the Pentateuch. Can the author be a contemporary writer +who gives Moses' words, as John gave the words of Jesus? No, for Deuteronomy covers +only the book of the Covenant, Exodus 20-23. It uses JE but not P, with which JE is +interwoven. But JE appears in Joshua and contributes to it an account of Joshua's +death. JE speaks of kings in Israel (<emph>Gen. 36:31-39</emph>). Deuteronomy plainly belongs to +the early centuries of the Kingdom, or to the middle of it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 43-49—<q>The Deuteronomic law was so short that Shaphan +could read it aloud before the king (<emph>2 K. 22:10</emph>) and the king could read <emph><q>the whole of it</q></emph> +before the people (<emph>23:2</emph>); compare the reading of the Pentateuch for a whole week +(<emph>Neh. 8:2-18</emph>). It was in the form of a covenant; it was distinguished by curses; it +was an expansion and modification, fully within the legitimate province of the prophet, +of a Torah of Moses codified from the traditional form of at least a century before. +Such a Torah existed, was attributed to Moses, and is now incorporated as <emph><q>the book +of the covenant</q></emph> in <emph>Exodus 20</emph> to <emph>24</emph>. The year 620 is therefore the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>terminus a quo</foreign> of Deuteronomy. +The date of the priestly code is 444 B. C.</q> Sanday, Bampton Lectures for +1893, grants <q>(1) the presence in the Pentateuch of a considerable element which in its +present shape is held by many to be not earlier than the captivity; (2) the composition +of the book of Deuteronomy, not long, or at least not very long, before its promulgation +by king Josiah in the year 621, which thus becomes a pivot-date in the history +of Hebrew literature.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) From references in the prophets Hosea (B. C. 743-737) and Amos +(759-745) to a course of divine teaching and revelation extending far back +of their day. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Hosea 8:12—<q>I wrote for him the ten thousand things of my law</q></emph>; here is asserted the existence +prior to the time of the prophet, not only of a law, but of a written law. All critics admit +the book of Hosea to be a genuine production of the prophet, dating from the eighth +century B. C.; see Green, in Presb. Rev., 1886:585-608. <emph>Amos 2:4—<q>they have rejected the law +of Jehovah, and have not kept his statutes</q></emph>; here is proof that, more than a century before the +finding of Deuteronomy in the temple, Israel was acquainted with God's law. Fisher, +Nature and Method of Revelation, 26, 27—<q>The lofty plane reached by the prophets +was not reached at a single bound.... There must have been a tap-root extending +far down into the earth.</q> Kurtz remarks that <q>the later books of the O. T. would be +a tree without roots, if the composition of the Pentateuch were transferred to a later +period of Hebrew history.</q> If we substitute for the word <q>Pentateuch</q> the words +<emph><q>Book of the covenant,</q></emph> we may assent to this dictum of Kurtz. There is sufficient evidence +that, before the times of Hosea and Amos, Israel possessed a written law—the law +embraced in <emph>Exodus 20-24</emph>—but the Pentateuch as we now have it, including Leviticus, +seems to date no further back than the time of Jeremiah, 445 B. C. The Levitical law +however was only the codification of statutes and customs whose origin lay far back +in the past and which were believed to be only the natural expansion of the principles +of Mosaic legislation. +</p> + +<p> +Leathes, Structure of O. T., 54—<q>Zeal for the restoration of the temple after the +exile implied that it had long before been the centre of the national polity, that there +had been a ritual and a law before the exile.</q> Present Day Tracts, 3:52—Levitical +<pb n='169'/><anchor id='Pg169'/> +institutions could not have been first established by David. It is inconceivable that he +<q>could have taken a whole tribe, and no trace remain of so revolutionary a measure as +the dispossessing them of their property to make them ministers of religion.</q> James +Robertson, Early History of Israel: <q>The varied literature of 850-750 B. C. implies the +existence of reading and writing for some time before. Amos and Hosea hold, for the +period succeeding Moses, the same scheme of history which modern critics pronounce +late and unhistorical. The eighth century B. C. was a time of broad historic day, when +Israel had a definite account to give of itself and of its history. The critics appeal to the +prophets, but they reject the prophets when these tell us that other teachers taught +the same truth before them, and when they declare that their nation had been taught +a better religion and had declined from it, in other words, that there had been law +long before their day. The kings did not <emph>give law</emph>. The priests <emph>presupposed</emph> it. +There must have been a formal system of law much earlier than the critics admit, and +also an earlier reference in their worship to the great events which made them a separate +people.</q> And Dillman goes yet further back and declares that the entire work of +Moses presupposes <q>a preparatory stage of higher religion in Abraham.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>h</hi>) From the repeated assertions of Scripture that Moses himself wrote +a law for his people, confirmed as these are by evidence of literary and +legislative activity in other nations far antedating his time. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 24:4—<q>And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah</q></emph>; <emph>34:27—<q>And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou +these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel</q></emph>; <emph>Num. 33:2—<q>And +Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of Jehovah</q></emph>; <emph>Deut. 31:9—<q>And +Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, that bare the ark of the covenant of +Jehovah, and unto all the elders of Israel</q></emph>; <emph>22—<q>So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children +of Israel</q></emph>; <emph>24-26—<q>And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, +until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, that bare the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, saying, Take +this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, that it may be there for +a witness against thee.</q></emph> The law here mentioned may possibly be only <emph><q>the book of the covenant</q> +(Ex. 20-24)</emph>, and the speeches of Moses in Deuteronomy may have been orally handed +down. But the fact that Moses was <emph><q>instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians</q> (Acts 7:22)</emph>, +together with the fact that the art of writing was known in Egypt for many hundred +years before his time, make it more probable that a larger portion of the Pentateuch +was of his own composition. +</p> + +<p> +Kenyon, in Hastings' Dict., art.: Writing, dates the Proverbs of Ptah-hotep, the first +recorded literary composition in Egypt, at 3580-3536 B. C., and asserts the free use of +writing among the Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia as early as 4000 B. C. The statutes +of Hammurabi king of Babylon compare for extent with those of Leviticus, yet they +date back to the time of Abraham, 2200 B. C.,—indeed Hammurabi is now regarded by +many as the Amraphel of <emph>Gen. 14:1</emph>. Yet these statutes antedate Moses by 700 years. It +is interesting to observe that Hammurabi professes to have received his statutes +directly from the Sun-god of Sippar, his capital city. See translation by Winckler, in +Der alte Orient, 97; Johns, The Oldest Code of Laws; Kelso, in Princeton Theol. Rev., +July, 1905:399-412—Facts <q>authenticate the traditional date of the Book of the Covenant, +overthrow the formula Prophets and Law, restore the old order Law and +Prophets, and put into historical perspective the tradition that Moses was the author +of the Sinaitic legislation.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +As the controversy with regard to the genuineness of the Old Testament +books has turned of late upon the claims of the Higher Criticism in +general, and upon the claims of the Pentateuch in particular, we subjoin +separate notes upon these subjects. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The Higher Criticism in general.</hi> Higher Criticism does not mean criticism in any +invidious sense, any more than Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was an unfavorable or +destructive examination. It is merely a dispassionate investigation of the authorship, +date and purpose of Scripture books, in the light of their composition, style and +internal characteristics. As the Lower Criticism is a text-critique, the Higher Criticism +is a structure-critique. A bright Frenchman described a literary critic as one +who rips open the doll to get at the sawdust there is in it. This can be done with a +sceptical and hostile spirit, and there can be little doubt that some of the higher critics +of the Old Testament have begun their studies with prepossessions against the supernatural, +<pb n='170'/><anchor id='Pg170'/> +which have vitiated all their conclusions. These presuppositions are often +unconscious, but none the less influential. When Bishop Colenso examined the Pentateuch +and Joshua, he disclaimed any intention of assailing the miraculous narratives +as such; as if he had said: <q>My dear little fish, you need not fear me; I do not wish to +catch you; I only intend to drain the pond in which you live.</q> To many scholars the +waters at present seem very low in the Hexateuch and indeed throughout the whole +Old Testament. +</p> + +<p> +Shakespeare made over and incorporated many old Chronicles of Plutarch and Holinshed, +and many Italian tales and early tragedies of other writers; but Pericles and +Titus Andronicus still pass current under the name of Shakespeare. We speak even +now of <q>Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar,</q> although of its twenty-seven editions the last +fourteen have been published since his death, and more of it has been written by other +editors than Gesenius ever wrote himself. We speak of <q>Webster's Dictionary,</q> +though there are in the <q>Unabridged</q> thousands of words and definitions that Webster +never saw. Francis Brown: <q>A modern writer masters older records and writes +a wholly new book. Not so with eastern historians. The latest comer, as Renan says, +<q>absorbs his predecessors without assimilating them, so that the most recent has in its +belly the fragments of the previous works in a raw state.</q> The Diatessaron of Tatian +is a parallel to the composite structure of the O. T. books. One passage yields the following: +<emph>Mat. 21:12a</emph>; <emph>John 2:14a</emph>; <emph>Mat. 21:12b</emph>; <emph>John 2:14b, 15</emph>; <emph>Mat. 21:12c, 13</emph>; <emph>John 2:16</emph>; <emph>Mark 11:16</emph>; +<emph>John 2:17-22</emph>; all succeeding each other without a break.</q> Gore, Lux Mundi, 353—<q>There +is nothing materially untruthful, though there is something uncritical, in attributing +the whole legislation to Moses acting under the divine command. It would be only of +a piece with the attribution of the collection of Psalms to David, and of Proverbs to +Solomon.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The opponents of the Higher Criticism have much to say in reply. Sayce, Early +History of the Hebrews, holds that the early chapters of Genesis were copied from +Babylonian sources, but he insists upon a Mosaic or pre-Mosaic date for the copying. +Hilprecht however declares that the monotheistic faith of Israel could never have proceeded +<q>from the Babylonian mountain of gods—that charnel-house full of corruption +and dead men's bones.</q> Bissell, Genesis Printed in Colors, Introd., iv—<q>It is +improbable that so many documentary histories existed so early, or if existing that the +compiler should have attempted to combine them. Strange that the earlier should be +J and should use the word <q>Jehovah,</q> while the later P should use the word <q>Elohim,</q> +when <q>Jehovah</q> would have far better suited the Priests' Code.... xiii—The +Babylonian tablets contain in a continuous narrative the more prominent facts of both +the alleged Elohistic and Jehovistic sections of Genesis, and present them mainly in +the Biblical order. Several hundred years before Moses what the critics call <emph>two</emph> were +already <emph>one</emph>. It is absurd to say that the unity was due to a redactor at the period of +the exile, 444 B. C. He who believes that God revealed himself to primitive man as one +God, will see in the Akkadian story a polytheistic corruption of the original monotheistic +account.</q> We must not estimate the antiquity of a pair of boots by the last patch +which the cobbler has added; nor must we estimate the antiquity of a Scripture book +by the glosses and explanations added by later editors. As the London Spectator +remarks on the Homeric problem: <q>It is as impossible that a first-rate poem or work +of art should be produced without a great master-mind which first conceives the whole, +as that a fine living bull should be developed out of beef-sausages.</q> As we shall proceed +to show, however, these utterances overestimate the unity of the Pentateuch and +ignore some striking evidences of its gradual growth and composite structure. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The Authorship of the Pentateuch in particular.</hi> Recent critics, especially Kuenen +and Robertson Smith, have maintained that the Pentateuch is Mosaic only in the sense +of being a gradually growing body of traditional law, which was codified as late as the +time of Ezekiel, and, as the development of the spirit and teachings of the great law-giver, +was called by a legal fiction after the name of Moses and was attributed to him. +The actual order of composition is therefore: (1) Book of the Covenant (<emph>Exodus 20-23</emph>); +(2) Deuteronomy; (3) Leviticus. Among the reasons assigned for this view are the +facts (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) that Deuteronomy ends with an account of Moses' death, and therefore could +not have been written by Moses; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) that in Leviticus Levites are mere servants to the +priests, while in Deuteronomy the priests are officiating Levites, or, in other words, all +the Levites are priests; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) that the books of Judges and of 1 Samuel, with their record +of sacrifices offered in many places, give no evidence that either Samuel or the nation +of Israel had any knowledge of a law confining worship to a local sanctuary. See +<pb n='171'/><anchor id='Pg171'/> +Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel; Wellhausen, Geschichte Israels, Band 1; and +art.: Israel, in Encyc. Brit., 13:398, 399, 415; W. Robertson Smith, O. T. in Jewish Church, +306, 386, and Prophets of Israel; Hastings, Bible Dict., arts.: Deuteronomy, Hexateuch, +and Canon of the O. T. +</p> + +<p> +It has been urged in reply, (1) that Moses may have written, not autographically, +but through a scribe (perhaps Joshua), and that this scribe may have completed the +history in Deuteronomy with the account of Moses' death; (2) that Ezra or subsequent +prophets may have subjected the whole Pentateuch to recension, and may have +added explanatory notes; (3) that documents of previous ages may have been incorporated, +in course of its composition by Moses, or subsequently by his successors; +(4) that the apparent lack of distinction between the different classes of Levites in +Deuteronomy may be explained by the fact that, while Leviticus was written with +exact detail for the priests, Deuteronomy is the record of a brief general and oral summary +of the law, addressed to the people at large and therefore naturally mentioning +the clergy as a whole; (5) that the silence of the book of Judges as to the Mosaic +ritual may be explained by the design of the book to describe only general history, and +by the probability that at the tabernacle a ritual was observed of which the people in +general were ignorant. Sacrifices in other places only accompanied special divine +manifestations which made the recipient temporarily a priest. Even if it were proved +that the law with regard to a central sanctuary was not observed, it would not show +that the law did not exist, any more than violation of the second commandment by +Solomon proves his ignorance of the decalogue, or the mediæval neglect of the N. T. +by the Roman church proves that the N. T. did not then exist. We cannot argue that +<q>where there was transgression, there was no law</q> (Watts, New Apologetic, 83, and +The Newer Criticism). +</p> + +<p> +In the light of recent research, however, we cannot regard these replies as satisfactory. +Woods, in his article on the Hexateuch, Hastings' Dictionary, 2:365, presents a +moderate statement of the results of the higher criticism which commends itself to us +as more trustworthy. He calls it a theory of stratification, and holds that <q rend='pre'>certain +more or less independent documents, dealing largely with the same series of events, +were composed at different periods, or, at any rate, under different auspices, and were +afterwards combined, so that our present Hexateuch, which means our Pentateuch +with the addition of Joshua, contains these several different literary strata.... The +main grounds for accepting this hypothesis of stratification are (1) that the various +literary pieces, with very few exceptions, will be found on examination to arrange +themselves by common characteristics into comparatively few groups; (2) that an +original consecution of narrative may be frequently traced between what in their +present form are isolated fragments.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>This will be better understood by the following illustration. Let us suppose a problem +of this kind: Given a patchwork quilt, explain the character of the original pieces +out of which the bits of stuff composing the quilt were cut. First, we notice that, however +well the colors may blend, however nice and complete the whole may look, many +of the adjoining pieces do not agree in material, texture, pattern, color, or the like. +Ergo, they have been made up out of very different pieces of stuff.... But suppose +we further discover that many of the bits, though now separated, are like one another +in material, texture, etc., we may conjecture that these have been cut out of one piece. +But we shall prove this beyond reasonable doubt if we find that several bits when +unpicked fit together, so that the pattern of one is continued in the other; and, +moreover, that if all of like character are sorted out, they form, say, four groups, each +of which was evidently once a single piece of stuff, though parts of each are found +missing, because, no doubt, they have not been required to make the whole. But we +make the analogy of the Hexateuch even closer, if we further suppose that in certain +parts of the quilt the bits belonging to, say, two of these groups are so combined as to +form a subsidiary pattern within the larger pattern of the whole quilt, and had evidently +been sewed together before being connected with other parts of the quilt; and +we may make it even closer still, if we suppose that, besides the more important bits +of stuff, smaller embellishments, borderings, and the like, had been added so as to +improve the general effect of the whole.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The author of this article goes on to point out three main portions of the Hexateuch +which essentially differ from each other. There are three distinct codes: the +Covenant code (C—<emph>Ex. 20:22</emph> to <emph>23:33</emph>, and <emph>24:3-8</emph>), the Deuteronomic code (D), and the +Priestly code (P). These codes have peculiar relations to the narrative portions of the +<pb n='172'/><anchor id='Pg172'/> +Hexateuch. In Genesis, for example, <q>the greater part of the book is divided into +groups of longer or shorter pieces, generally paragraphs or chapters, distinguished +respectively by the almost exclusive use of Elohim or Jehovah as the name of God.</q> +Let us call these portions J and E. But we find such close affinities between C and +JE, that we may regard them as substantially one. <q rend='pre'>We shall find that the larger +part of the narratives, as distinct from the laws, of Exodus and Numbers belong to +JE; whereas, with special exceptions, the legal portions belong to P. In the last chapters +of Deuteronomy and in the whole of Joshua we find elements of JE. In the latter +book we also find elements which connect it with D.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>It should be observed that not only do we find here and there <emph>separate pieces</emph> in the +Hexateuch, shown by their characters to belong to these three sources, JE, D, and +P, but the pieces will often be found connected together by an obvious continuity of +subject when pieced together, like the bits of patchwork in the illustration with which +we started. For example, if we read continuously <emph>Gen. 11:27-33</emph>; <emph>12:4b, 5</emph>; <emph>13:6a, 11b, 12a</emph>; +<emph>16:1a, 3, 15, 16</emph>; <emph>17</emph>; <emph>19:29</emph>; <emph>21:1a, 2b-5</emph>; <emph>23</emph>; <emph>25:7-11a</emph>—passages mainly, on other grounds, +attributed to P, we get an almost continuous and complete, though very concise, +account of Abraham's life.</q> We may concede the substantial correctness of the view +thus propounded. It simply shows God's actual method in making up the record of +his revelation. We may add that any scholar who grants that Moses did not himself +write the account of his own death and burial in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, or +who recognizes two differing accounts of creation in <emph>Genesis 1</emph> and <emph>2</emph>, has already begun +an analysis of the Pentateuch and has accepted the essential principles of the higher +criticism. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the literature already referred to mention may also be made of +Driver's Introd. to O. T., 118-150, and Deuteronomy, Introd.; W. R. Harper, in Hebraica, +Oct.-Dec. 1888, and W. H. Green's reply in Hebraica. Jan.-Apr. 1889; also Green, +The Unity of the Book of Genesis, Moses and the Prophets, Hebrew Feasts, and Higher +Criticism of the Pentateuch; with articles by Green in Presb. Rev., Jan. 1882 and Oct. +1886; Howard Osgood, in Essays on Pentateuchal Criticism, and in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1888, +and July, 1893; Watts, The Newer Criticism, and New Apologetic, 83; Presb. Rev., arts. +by H. P. Smith, April, 1882, and by F. L. Patton, 1883:341-410; Bib. Sac., April, 1882:291-344, +and by G. F. Wright, July, 1898:515-525; Brit. Quar., July, 1881:123; Jan. 1884:138-143; +Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 373-385; Stebbins, A Study in the Pentateuch; +Bissell, Historic Origin of the Bible, 277-342, and The Pentateuch, its Authorship and +Structure; Bartlett, Sources of History in the Pentateuch, 180-216, and The Veracity +of the Hexateuch; Murray, Origin and Growth of the Psalms, 58; Payne-Smith, in +Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 15; Edersheim, Prophecy and History; Kurtz, Hist. Old +Covenant, 1:46; Perowne, in Contemp. Rev., Jan. and Feb. 1888; Chambers, Moses and +his Recent Critics; Terry, Moses and the Prophets; Davis, Dictionary of the Bible, art.: +Pentateuch; Willis J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise; Orr, Problem of the +O. T., 326-329. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Credibility of the Writers of the Scriptures.</head> + +<p> +We shall attempt to prove this only of the writers of the gospels; for if +they are credible witnesses, the credibility of the Old Testament, to which +they bore testimony, follows as a matter of course. +</p> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>They are capable or competent witnesses</hi>,—that is, they possessed +actual knowledge with regard to the facts they professed to relate. (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) +They had opportunities of observation and inquiry. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) They were men +of sobriety and discernment, and could not have been themselves deceived. +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Their circumstances were such as to impress deeply upon their minds +the events of which they were witnesses. +</p> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>They are honest witnesses.</hi> This is evident when we consider that: +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Their testimony imperiled all their worldly interests. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The moral +elevation of their writings, and their manifest reverence for truth and constant +inculcation of it, show that they were not wilful deceivers, but good +<pb n='173'/><anchor id='Pg173'/> +men. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) There are minor indications of the honesty of these writers in +the circumstantiality of their story, in the absence of any expectation that +their narratives would be questioned, in their freedom from all disposition +to screen themselves or the apostles from censure. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Lessing says that Homer never calls Helen beautiful, but he gives the reader an +impression of her surpassing loveliness by portraying the effect produced by her presence. +So the evangelists do not describe Jesus' appearance or character, but lead us to +conceive the cause that could produce such effects. Gore, Incarnation, 77—<q>Pilate, +Caiaphas, Herod, Judas, are not abused,—they are photographed. The sin of a Judas +and a Peter is told with equal simplicity. Such fairness, wherever you find it, belongs +to a trustworthy witness.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>The writings of the evangelists mutually support each other.</hi> We +argue their credibility upon the ground of their number and of the consistency +of their testimony. While there is enough of discrepancy to +show that there has been no collusion between them, there is concurrence +enough to make the falsehood of them all infinitely improbable. Four +points under this head deserve mention: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The evangelists are independent +witnesses. This is sufficiently shown by the futility of the attempts to +prove that any one of them has abridged or transcribed another. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The +discrepancies between them are none of them irreconcilable with the +truth of the recorded facts, but only present those facts in new lights or +with additional detail. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That these witnesses were friends of Christ +does not lessen the value of their united testimony, since they followed +Christ only because they were convinced that these facts were true. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) +While one witness to the facts of Christianity might establish its truth, the +combined evidence of four witnesses gives us a warrant for faith in the facts +of the gospel such as we possess for no other facts in ancient history whatsoever. +The same rule which would refuse belief in the events recorded +in the gospels <q>would throw doubt on any event in history.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +No man does or can write his own signature twice precisely alike. When two +signatures, therefore, purporting to be written by the same person, are precisely alike, +it is safe to conclude that one of them is a forgery. Compare the combined testimony +of the evangelists with the combined testimony of our five senses. <q>Let us assume,</q> +says Dr. C. E. Rider, <q>that the chances of deception are as one to ten when we use our +eyes alone, one to twenty when we use our ears alone, and one to forty when we use +our sense of touch alone; what are the chances of mistake when we use all these senses +simultaneously? The true result is obtained by multiplying these proportions together. +This gives one to eight thousand.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>The conformity of the gospel testimony with experience.</hi> We have +already shown that, granting the fact of sin and the need of an attested +revelation from God, miracles can furnish no presumption against the testimony +of those who record such a revelation, but, as essentially belonging +to such a revelation, miracles may be proved by the same kind and degree +of evidence as is required in proof of any other extraordinary facts. We +may assert, then, that in the New Testament histories there is no record +of facts contrary to experience, but only a record of facts not witnessed in +ordinary experience—of facts, therefore, in which we may believe, if the +evidence in other respects is sufficient. +</p> + +<p> +5. <hi rend='italic'>Coincidence of this testimony with collateral facts and circumstances.</hi> +Under this head we may refer to (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the numberless correspondences +<pb n='174'/><anchor id='Pg174'/> +between the narratives of the evangelists and contemporary history; +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the failure of every attempt thus far to show that the sacred history is +contradicted by any single fact derived from other trustworthy sources; +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the infinite improbability that this minute and complete harmony +should ever have been secured in fictitious narratives. +</p> + +<p> +6. <hi rend='italic'>Conclusion from the argument for the credibility of the writers of +the gospels.</hi> These writers having been proved to be credible witnesses, +their narratives, including the accounts of the miracles and prophecies of +Christ and his apostles, must be accepted as true. But God would not +work miracles or reveal the future to attest the claims of false teachers. +Christ and his apostles must, therefore, have been what they claimed to be, +teachers sent from God, and their doctrine must be what they claimed it +to be, a revelation from God to men. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On the whole subject, see Ebrard, Wissensch. Kritik der evang. Geschichte; Greenleaf, +Testimony of the Evangelists, 30, 31; Starkie on Evidence, 734; Whately, Historic +Doubts as to Napoleon Buonaparte; Haley, Examination of Alleged Discrepancies; +Smith's Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul; Paley, Horse Paulinæ; Birks, in Strivings +for the Faith, 37-72—<q>Discrepancies are like the slight diversities of the different pictures +of the stereoscope.</q> Renan calls the land of Palestine a fifth gospel. Weiss contrasts +the Apocryphal Gospels, where there is no historical setting and all is in the air, +with the evangelists, where time and place are always stated. +</p> + +<p> +No modern apologist has stated the argument for the credibility of the New Testament +with greater clearness and force than Paley,—Evidences, chapters 8 and 10—<q rend='pre'>No +historical fact is more certain than that the original propagators of the gospel voluntarily +subjected themselves to lives of fatigue, danger, and suffering, in the prosecution +of their undertaking. The nature of the undertaking, the character of the persons +employed in it, the opposition of their tenets to the fixed expectations of the +country in which they at first advanced them, their undissembled condemnation of the +religion of all other countries, their total want of power, authority, or force, render it +in the highest degree <emph>probable</emph> that this must have been the case.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q rend='pre'>The probability is increased by what we know of the fate of the Founder of the +institution, who was put to death for his attempt, and by what we also know of the cruel +treatment of the converts to the institution within thirty years after its commencement—both +which points are attested by heathen writers, and, being once admitted, +leave it very incredible that the primitive emissaries of the religion who exercised their +ministry first amongst the people who had destroyed their Master, and afterwards +amongst those who persecuted their converts, should themselves escape with impunity +or pursue their purpose in ease and safety.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q rend='pre'>This probability, thus sustained by foreign testimony, is advanced, I think, to historical +certainty by the evidence of our own books, by the accounts of a writer who was +the companion of the persons whose sufferings he relates, by the letters of the persons +themselves, by predictions of persecutions, ascribed to the Founder of the religion, +which predictions would not have been inserted in this history, much less, studiously +dwelt upon, if they had not accorded with the event, and which, even if falsely +ascribed to him, could only have been so ascribed because the event suggested them; +lastly, by incessant exhortations to fortitude and patience, and by an earnestness, repetition +and urgency upon the subject which were unlikely to have appeared, if there +had not been, at the time, some extraordinary call for the exercise of such virtues. It +is also made out, I think, with sufficient evidence, that both the teachers and converts +of the religion, in consequence of their new profession, took up a new course of life +and conduct.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>The next great question is, what they did this <emph>for</emph>. It was for a miraculous story of +some kind, since for the proof that Jesus of Nazareth ought to be received as the Messiah, +or as a messenger for God, they neither had nor could have anything but miracles +to stand upon.... If this be so, the religion must be true. These men could not be +deceivers. By only not bearing testimony, they might have avoided all these sufferings +and lived quietly. Would men in such circumstances pretend to have seen what +they never saw, assert facts which they had no knowledge of, go about lying to +<pb n='175'/><anchor id='Pg175'/> +teach virtue, and though not only convinced of Christ's being an impostor, but having +seen the success of his imposture in his crucifixion, yet persist in carrying it on, and so +persist as to bring upon themselves, for nothing, and with a full knowledge of the consequences, +enmity and hatred, danger and death?</q> +</p> + +<p> +Those who maintain this, moreover, require us to believe that the Scripture writers +were <q>villains for no end but to teach honesty, and martyrs without the least prospect +of honor or advantage.</q> Imposture must have a motive. The self-devotion of the +apostles is the strongest evidence of their truth, for even Hume declares that <q>we cannot +make use of a more convincing argument in proof of honesty than to prove that +the actions ascribed to any persons are contrary to the course of nature, and that no +human motives, in such circumstances, could ever induce them to such conduct.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. The Supernatural Character of the Scripture Teaching.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Scripture teaching in general.</head> + +<p> +A. The Bible is the work of one mind. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In spite of its variety of authorship and the vast separation of its +writers from one another in point of time, there is a unity of subject, spirit, +and aim throughout the whole. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We here begin a new department of Christian evidences. We have thus far only +adduced external evidence. We now turn our attention to internal evidence. The relation +of external to internal evidence seems to be suggested in Christ's two questions in +<emph>Mark 8:27, 29—<q>Who do <emph>men</emph> say that I am?... who say <emph>ye</emph> that I am?</q></emph> The unity in variety displayed +in Scripture is one of the chief internal evidences. This unity is indicated in +our word <q>Bible,</q> in the singular number. Yet the original word was <q>Biblia,</q> a +plural number. The world has come to see a unity in what were once scattered fragments: +the many <q>Biblia</q> have become one <q>Bible.</q> In one sense R. W. Emerson's +contention is true: <q>The Bible is not a book,—it is a literature.</q> But we may also +say, and with equal truth: <q>The Bible is not simply a collection of books,—it is a book.</q> +The Bible is made up of sixty-six books, by forty writers, of all ranks,—shepherds, +fishermen, priests, warriors, statesmen, kings,—composing their works at intervals +through a period of seventeen centuries. Evidently no collusion between them is possible. +Scepticism tends ever to ascribe to the Scriptures greater variety of authorship +and date, but all this only increases the wonder of the Bible's unity. If unity in a half +dozen writers is remarkable, in forty it is astounding. <q>The many diverse instruments +of this orchestra play one perfect tune: hence we feel that they are led by one master +and composer.</q> Yet it takes the same Spirit who inspired the Bible to teach its unity. +The union is not an external or superficial one, but one that is internal and spiritual. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Not one moral or religious utterance of all these writers has been +contradicted or superseded by the utterances of those who have come later, +but all together constitute a consistent system. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Here we must distinguish between the external form and the moral and religious +substance. Jesus declares in <emph>Mat. 5:21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 38, 39, 43, 44, <q>Ye have heard that it was said to +them of old time ... but I say unto you,</q></emph> and then he seems at first sight to abrogate certain +original commands. But he also declares in this connection, <emph>Mat. 5:17, 18—<q>Think not I am +come to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven +and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.</q></emph> +Christ's new commandments only bring out the inner meaning of the old. He fulfils +them not in their literal form but in their essential spirit. So the New Testament completes +the revelation of the Old Testament and makes the Bible a perfect unity. In +this unity the Bible stands alone. Hindu, Persian, and Chinese religious books contain +no consistent system of faith. There is progress in revelation from the earlier to the +later books of the Bible, but this is not progress through successive steps of falsehood; +it is rather progress from a less to a more clear and full unfolding of the truth. The +whole truth lay germinally in the <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>protevangelium</foreign> uttered to our first parents (<emph>Gen. 3:15</emph>—the +seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head). +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Each of these writings, whether early or late, has represented moral +and religious ideas greatly in advance of the age in which it has appeared, +and these ideas still lead the world. +</p> + +<pb n='176'/><anchor id='Pg176'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +All our ideas of progress, with all the forward-looking spirit of modern Christendom, +are due to Scripture. The classic nations had no such ideas and no such spirit, except +as they caught them from the Hebrews. Virgil's prophecy, in his fourth Eclogue, of a +coming virgin and of the reign of Saturn and of the return of the golden age, was only +the echo of the Sibylline books and of the hope of a Redeemer with which the Jews +had leavened the whole Roman world; see A. H. Strong, The Great Poets and their +Theology, 94-96. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) It is impossible to account for this unity without supposing such a +supernatural suggestion and control that the Bible, while in its various +parts written by human agents, is yet equally the work of a superhuman +intelligence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We may contrast with the harmony between the different Scripture writers the +contradictions and refutations which follow merely human philosophies—<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, the +Hegelian idealism and the Spencerian materialism. Hegel is <q>a name to swear at, as +well as to swear by.</q> Dr. Stirling, in his Secret of Hegel, <q>kept all the secret to himself, +if he ever knew it.</q> A certain Frenchman once asked Hegel if he could not gather +up and express his philosophy in one sentence for him. <q>No,</q> Hegel replied, <q>at least +not in French.</q> If Talleyrand's maxim be true that whatever is not intelligible is not +French, Hegel's answer was a correct one. Hegel said of his disciples: <q>There is only +one man living who understands me, and he does not.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Goeschel, Gabler, Daub, Marheinecke, Erdmann, are Hegel's right wing, or orthodox +representatives and followers in theology; see Sterrett, Hegel's Philosophy of Religion. +Hegel is followed by Alexander and Bradley in England, but is opposed by Seth +and Schiller. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 279-300, gives a valuable estimate of his position +and influence: Hegel is all thought and no will. Prayer has no effect on God,—it +is a purely psychological phenomenon. There is no free-will, and man's sin as much +as man's holiness is a manifestation of the Eternal. Evolution is a fact, but it is only +fatalistic evolution. Hegel notwithstanding did great service by substituting knowledge +of reality for the oppressive Kantian relativity, and by banishing the old notion of +matter as a mysterious substance wholly unlike and incompatible with the properties +of mind. He did great service also by showing that the interactions of matter and +mind are explicable only by the presence of the Absolute Whole in every part, though +he erred greatly by carrying that idea of the unity of God and man beyond its proper +limits, and by denying that God has given to the will of man any power to put itself into +antagonism to His Will. Hegel did great service by showing that we cannot know even +the part without knowing the whole, but he erred in teaching, as T. H. Green did, that +the <emph>relations</emph> constitute the <emph>reality</emph> of the thing. He deprives both physical and psychical +existences of that degree of selfhood or independent reality which is essential to +both science and religion. We want real force, and not the mere idea of force; real +will, and not mere thought. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. This one mind that made the Bible is the same mind that made the +soul, for the Bible is divinely adapted to the soul, +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It shows complete acquaintance with the soul. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Bible addresses all parts of man's nature. There are Law and Epistles for man's +reason; Psalms and Gospels for his affections; Prophets and Revelations for his imagination. +Hence the popularity of the Scriptures. Their variety holds men. The Bible +has become interwoven into modern life. Law, literature, art, all show its moulding +influence. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It judges the soul—contradicting its passions, revealing its guilt, +and humbling its pride. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +No product of mere human nature could thus look down upon human nature and +condemn it. The Bible speaks to us from a higher level. The Samaritan woman's words +apply to the whole compass of divine revelation; it tells us all things that ever we did +(<emph>John 4:29</emph>). The Brahmin declared that <emph>Romans 1</emph>, with its description of heathen vices, +must have been forged after the missionaries came to India. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It meets the deepest needs of the soul—by solutions of its problems, +disclosures of God's character, presentations of the way of pardon, consolations +and promises for life and death. +</p> + +<pb n='177'/><anchor id='Pg177'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Neither Socrates nor Seneca sets forth the nature, origin and consequences of sin as +committed against the holiness of God, nor do they point out the way of pardon and +renewal. The Bible teaches us what nature cannot, viz.: God's creatorship, the origin +of evil, the method of restoration, the certainty of a future state, and the principle of +rewards and punishments there. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Yet it is silent upon many questions for which writings of merely +human origin seek first to provide solutions. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Compare the account of Christ's infancy in the gospels with the fables of the Apocryphal +New Testament; compare the scant utterances of Scripture with regard to the +future state with Mohammed's and Swedenborg's revelations of Paradise. See Alexander +McLaren's sermon on The Silence of Scripture, in his book entitled: Christ in the +Heart, 131-141. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) There are infinite depths and inexhaustible reaches of meaning in +Scripture, which difference it from all other books, and which compel us to +believe that its author must be divine. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Sir Walter Scott, on his death bed: <q>Bring me the Book!</q> <q>What book?</q> said +Lockhart, his son-in-law. <q>There is but one book!</q> said the dying man. Réville concludes +an Essay in the Revue des deux Mondes (1864): <q>One day the question was +started, in an assembly, what book a man condemned to lifelong imprisonment, and to +whom but one book would be permitted, had better take into his cell with him. The +company consisted of Catholics, Protestants, philosophers and even materialists, but +all agreed that their choice would fall only on the Bible.</q> +</p> + +<p> +On the whole subject, see Garbett, God's Word Written, 3-56; Luthardt, Saving +Truths, 210; Rogers, Superhuman Origin of Bible, 155-181; W. L. Alexander, Connection +and Harmony of O. T. and N. T.; Stanley Leathes, Structure of the O. T.; Bernard, +Progress of Doctrine in the N. T.; Rainy, Delivery and Development of Doctrine; +Titcomb, in Strivings for the Faith; Immer, Hermeneutics, 91; Present Day Tracts, 4: +no. 23; 5: no. 28; 6: no. 31; Lee on Inspiration, 26-32. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Moral System of the New Testament.</head> + +<p> +The perfection of this system is generally conceded. All will admit that +it greatly surpasses any other system known among men. Among its distinguishing +characteristics may be mentioned: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Its comprehensiveness,—including all human duties in its code, +even the most generally misunderstood and neglected, while it permits no +vice whatsoever. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Buddhism regards family life as sinful. Suicide was commended by many ancient +philosophers. Among the Spartans to steal was praiseworthy,—only to be caught +stealing was criminal. Classic times despised humility. Thomas Paine said that Christianity +cultivated <q>the spirit of a spaniel,</q> and John Stuart Mill asserted that Christ +ignored duty to the state. Yet Peter urges Christians to add to their faith manliness, +courage, heroism (<emph>2 Pet. 1:5—<q>in your faith supply virtue</q></emph>), and Paul declares the state to +be God's ordinance (<emph>Rom. 13:1—<q>Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power +but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God</q></emph>). Patriotic defence of a nation's unity +and freedom has always found its chief incitement and ground in these injunctions of +Scripture. E. G. Robinson: <q>Christian ethics do not contain a particle of chaff,—all +is pure wheat.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Its spirituality,—accepting no merely external conformity to right +precepts, but judging all action by the thoughts and motives from which it +springs. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The superficiality of heathen morals is well illustrated by the treatment of the +corpse of a priest in Siam: the body is covered with gold leaf, and then is left to rot and +shine. Heathenism divorces religion from ethics. External and ceremonial observances +take the place of purity of heart. The Sermon on the Mount on the other hand +<pb n='178'/><anchor id='Pg178'/> +pronounces blessing only upon inward states of the soul. <emph>Ps. 51:6—<q>Behold, thou desirest +truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom</q></emph>; <emph>Micah 6:8—<q>what doth +Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Its simplicity,—inculcating principles rather than imposing rules; +reducing these principles to an organic system; and connecting this system +with religion by summing up all human duty in the one command of love +to God and man. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Christianity presents no extensive code of rules, like that of the Pharisees or of the +Jesuits. Such codes break down of their own weight. The laws of the State of New +York alone constitute a library of themselves, which only the trained lawyer can +master. It is said that Mohammedanism has recorded sixty-five thousand special +instances in which the reader is directed to do right. It is the merit of Jesus' system +that all its requisitions are reduced to unity. <emph>Mark 12:29-31—<q>Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the +Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and +with all thy strength. The second is this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment +greater than these.</q></emph> Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:384-814, calls attention to the inner unity +of Jesus' teaching. The doctrine that God is a loving Father is applied with unswerving +consistency. Jesus confirmed whatever was true in the O. T., and he set aside the +unworthy. He taught not so much about God, as about the kingdom of God, and +about the ideal fellowship between God and men. Morality was the necessary and +natural expression of religion. In Christ teaching and life were perfectly blended. He +was the representative of the religion which he taught. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Its practicality,—exemplifying its precepts in the life of Jesus +Christ; and, while it declares man's depravity and inability in his own +strength to keep the law, furnishing motives to obedience, and the divine +aid of the Holy Spirit to make this obedience possible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Revelation has two sides: Moral law, and provision for fulfilling the moral law that +has been broken. Heathen systems can incite to temporary reformations, and they +can terrify with fears of retribution. But only God's regenerating grace can make +the tree good, in such a way that its fruit will be good also (<emph>Mat. 12:33</emph>). There is a difference +between touching the pendulum of the clock and winding it up,—the former +may set it temporarily swinging, but only the latter secures its regular and permanent +motion. The moral system of the N. T. is not simply law,—it is also grace: <emph>John 1:17—<q>the +law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.</q></emph> Dr. William Ashmore's +tract represents a Chinaman in a pit. Confucius looks into the pit and says: <q>If you +had done as I told you, you would never have gotten in.</q> Buddha looks into the pit +and says: <q>If you were up here I would show you what to do.</q> So both Confucius +and Buddha pass on. But Jesus leaps down into the pit and helps the poor Chinaman +out. +</p> + +<p> +At the Parliament of Religions in Chicago there were many ideals of life propounded, +but no religion except Christianity attempted to show that there was any power given +to realize these ideals. When Joseph Cook challenged the priests of the ancient +religions to answer Lady Macbeth's question: <q>How cleanse this red right hand?</q> +the priests were dumb. But Christianity declares that <emph><q>the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us +from all sin</q> (1 John 1:7)</emph>. E. G. Robinson: Christianity differs from all other religions in +being (1) a historical religion; (2) in turning abstract law into a person to be loved; +(3) in furnishing a demonstration of God's love in Christ; (4) in providing atonement +for sin and forgiveness for the sinner; (5) in giving a power to fulfil the law +and sanctify the life. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 249—<q>Christianity, by making the +moral law the expression of a holy Will, brought that law out of its impersonal +abstraction, and assured its ultimate triumph. Moral principles may be what they were +before, but moral practice is forever different. Even the earth itself has another look, +now that it has heaven above it.</q> Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 92—<q>The achievement +of Christianity was not the inculcation of a <emph>new</emph>, still less of a <emph>systematic</emph>, morality; +but the introduction of a new <emph>spirit</emph> into morality; as Christ himself said, a leaven +into the lump.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We may justly argue that a moral system so pure and perfect, since it +surpasses all human powers of invention and runs counter to men's natural +<pb n='179'/><anchor id='Pg179'/> +tastes and passions, must have had a supernatural, and if a supernatural, +then a divine, origin. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Heathen systems of morality are in general defective, in that they furnish for man's +moral action no sufficient example, rule, motive, or end. They cannot do this, for the +reason that they practically identify God with nature, and know of no clear revelation +of his holy will. Man is left to the law of his own being, and since he is not conceived +of as wholly responsible and free, the lower impulses are allowed sway as well as the +higher, and selfishness is not regarded as sin. As heathendom does not recognize man's +depravity, so it does not recognize his dependence upon divine grace, and its virtue is +self-righteousness. Heathenism is man's vain effort to lift himself to God; Christianity +is God's coming down to man to save him; see Gunsaulus, Transfig. of Christ, 11, 12. +Martineau, 1:15, 16, calls attention to the difference between the physiological ethics +of heathendom and the psychological ethics of Christianity. Physiological ethics begins +with nature; and, finding in nature the uniform rule of necessity and the operation +of cause and effect, it comes at last to man and applies the same rule to him, thus +extinguishing all faith in personality, freedom, responsibility, sin and guilt. Psychological +ethics, on the contrary, wisely begins with what we know best, with man; and +finding in him free-will and a moral purpose, it proceeds outward to nature and interprets +nature as the manifestation of the mind and will of God. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Psychological ethics are altogether peculiar to Christendom.... Other systems +begin outside and regard the soul as a homogeneous part of the <emph>universe</emph>, applying +to the soul the principle of necessity that prevails outside of it.... In the Christian +religion, on the other hand, the interest, the mystery of the world are concentrated in +<emph>human nature</emph>.... The sense of sin—a sentiment that left no trace in Athens—involves +a consciousness of personal alienation from the Supreme Goodness; the aspiration +after holiness directs itself to a union of affection and will with the source of +all Perfection; the agency for transforming men from their old estrangement to new +reconciliation is a Person, in whom the divine and human historically blend; and +the sanctifying Spirit by which they are sustained at the height of their purer life +is a living link of communion between their minds and the Soul of souls.... So +Nature, to the Christian consciousness, sank into the accidental and the neutral.</q> +Measuring ourselves by human standards, we nourish pride; measuring ourselves +by divine standards, we nourish humility. Heathen nations, identifying God with +nature or with man, are unprogressive. The flat architecture of the Parthenon, with +its lines parallel to the earth, is the type of heathen religion; the aspiring arches of the +Gothic cathedral symbolize Christianity. +</p> + +<p> +Sterrett, Studies in Hegel, 33, says that Hegel characterized the Chinese religion as +that of Measure, or temperate conduct; Brahmanism as that of Phantasy, or inebriate +dream-life; Buddhism as that of Self-involvement; that of Egypt as the imbruted +religion of Enigma, symbolized by the Sphynx; that of Greece, as the religion of +Beauty; the Jewish as that of Sublimity; and Christianity as the Absolute religion, the +fully revealed religion of truth and freedom. In all this Hegel entirely fails to grasp the +elements of Will, Holiness, Love, Life, which characterize Judaism and Christianity, +and distinguish them from all other religions. R. H. Hutton: <q>Judaism taught us +that Nature must be interpreted by our knowledge of God, not God by our knowledge +of Nature.</q> Lyman Abbott: <q>Christianity is not a new <emph>life</emph>, but a new <emph>power</emph>; not a +<emph>summons</emph> to a new life, but an <emph>offer</emph> of new life; not a reënactment of the old law, +but a power of God unto salvation; not love to God and man, but Christ's message that +God loves us, and will help us to the life of love.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 5, 6—<q>Christianity postulates an opening of the heart of +the eternal God to the heart of man coming to meet him. Heathendom shows us the +heart of man blunderingly grasping the hem of God's garment, and mistaking Nature, +his majestic raiment, for himself. Only in the Bible does man press beyond God's +external manifestations to God himself.</q> See Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:37-173; +Porter, in Present Day Tracts, 4: no. 19, pp. 33-64: Blackie, Four Phases of Morals; +Faiths of the World (St. Giles Lectures, second series); J. F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, +2:280-317; Garbett, Dogmatic Faith; Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 134, +and Seekers after God, 181, 182, 320; Curtis on Inspiration, 288. For denial of the all-comprehensive +character of Christian Morality, see John Stuart Mill, on Liberty; <hi rend='italic'>per +contra</hi>, see Review of Mill, in Theol. Eclectic, 6:508-512; Row, in Strivings for the +Faith, pub. by Christian Evidence Society, 181-220; also, Bampton Lectures, 1877:130-176; +Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 28-38, 174. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='180'/><anchor id='Pg180'/> + +<p> +In contrast with the Christian system of morality the defects of heathen +systems are so marked and fundamental, that they constitute a strong +corroborative evidence of the divine origin of the Scripture revelation. We +therefore append certain facts and references with regard to particular +heathen systems. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Confucianism.</hi> Confucius (<foreign lang='zh' rend='italic'>Kung-fu-tse</foreign>), B. C. 551-478, contemporary with Pythagoras +and Buddha. Socrates was born ten years after Confucius died. Mencius (371-278) +was a disciple of Confucius. Matheson, in Faiths of the World (St. Giles Lectures), +73-108, claims that Confucianism was <q>an attempt to substitute a morality for theology.</q> +Legge, however, in Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 18, shows that this is a mistake. Confucius +simply left religion where he found it. God, or Heaven, is worshiped in China, +but only by the Emperor. Chinese religion is apparently a survival of the worship of +the patriarchal family. The father of the family was its only head and priest. In China, +though the family widened into the tribe, and the tribe into the nation, the father still +retained his sole authority, and, as the father of his people, the Emperor alone officially +offered sacrifice to God. Between God and the people the gulf has so widened that the +people may be said to have no practical knowledge of God or communication with him. +Dr. W. A. P. Martin: <q>Confucianism has degenerated into a pantheistic medley, and renders +worship to an impersonal <q>anima mundi,</q> under the leading forms of visible nature.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Dr. William Ashmore, private letter: <q>The common people of China have: (1) +Ancestor-worship, and the worship of deified heroes: (2) Geomancy, or belief in +the controlling power of the elements of nature; but back of these, and antedating +them, is (3) the worship of Heaven and Earth, or Father and Mother, a very ancient +dualism; this belongs to the common people also, though once a year the Emperor, +as a sort of high-priest of his people, offers sacrifice on the altar of Heaven; in this +he acts alone. <q>Joss</q> is not a Chinese word at all. It is the corrupted form of the +Portuguese word <q>Deos.</q> The word <q>pidgin</q> is similarly an attempt to say <q>business</q> +(big-i-ness or bidgin). <q>Joss-pidgin</q> therefore means simply <q>divine service,</q> or service +offered to Heaven and Earth, or to spirits of any kind, good or bad. There are many +gods, a Queen of Heaven, King of Hades, God of War, god of literature, gods of the hills, +valleys, streams, a goddess of small-pox, of child-bearing, and all the various trades +have their gods. The most lofty expression the Chinese have is <q>Heaven,</q> or <q>Supreme +Heaven,</q> or <q>Azure Heaven.</q> This is the surviving indication that in the most remote +times they had knowledge of one supreme, intelligent and personal Power who ruled +over all.</q> Mr. Yugoro Chiba has shown that the Chinese classics permit sacrifice by all +the people. But it still remains true that sacrifice to <q>Supreme Heaven</q> is practically +confined to the Emperor, who like the Jewish high-priest offers for his people once a +year. +</p> + +<p> +Confucius did nothing to put morality upon a religious basis. In practice, the relations +between man and man are the only relations considered. Benevolence, righteousness, +propriety, wisdom, sincerity, are enjoined, but not a word is said with regard to +man's relations to God. Love to God is not only not commanded—it is not thought of +as possible. Though man's being is theoretically an ordinance of God, man is practically +a law to himself. The first commandment of Confucius is that of filial piety. But this +includes worship of dead ancestors, and is so exaggerated as to bury from sight the +related duties of husband to wife and of parent to child. Confucius made it the duty of +a son to slay his father's murderer, just as Moses insisted on a strictly retaliatory +penalty for bloodshed; see J. A. Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, 80. He +treated invisible and superior beings with respect, but held them at a distance. He +recognized the <q>Heaven</q> of tradition; but, instead of adding to our knowledge of it, +he stifled inquiry. Dr. Legge: <q>I have been reading Chinese books for more than +forty years, and any general requirement to love God, or the mention of any one +as actually loving him, has yet to come for the first time under my eye.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Ezra Abbot asserts that Confucius gave the golden rule in positive as well as negative +form; see Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 222. This however seems to be denied +by Dr. Legge, Religions of China, 1-58. Wu Ting Fang, former Chinese minister to +Washington, assents to the statement that Confucius gave the golden rule only in its +negative form, and he says this difference is the difference between a passive and an +aggressive civilization, which last is therefore dominant. The golden rule, as Confucius +gives it, is: <q>Do not unto others that which you would not they should do unto +you.</q> Compare with this, Isocrates: <q>Be to your parents what you would have your +<pb n='181'/><anchor id='Pg181'/> +children be to you.... Do not to others the things which make you angry when others +do them to you</q>; Herodotus: <q>What I punish in another man, I will myself, as far as +I can, refrain from</q>; Aristotle: <q>We should behave toward our friends as we should +wish them to behave toward us</q>; Tobit, 4:15—<q>What thou hatest, do to no one</q>; +Philo: <q>What one hates to endure, let him not do</q>; Seneca bids us <q>give as we wish +to receive</q>; Rabbi Hillel: <q>Whatsoever is hateful to you, do not to another; this is +the whole law, and all the rest is explanation.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Broadus, in Am. Com. on Matthew, 161—<q>The sayings of Confucius, Isocrates, and +the three Jewish teachers, are merely negative; that of Seneca is confined to giving, +and that of Aristotle to the treatment of friends. Christ lays down a rule for positive +action, and that toward all men.</q> He teaches that I am bound to do to others all that +they could rightly desire me to do to them. The golden rule therefore requires a supplement, +to show what others can rightly desire, namely, God's glory first, and their +good as second and incidental thereto. Christianity furnishes this divine and perfect +standard; Confucianism is defective in that it has no standard higher than human convention. +While Confucianism excludes polytheism, idolatry, and deification of vice, +it is a shallow and tantalizing system, because it does not recognize the hereditary corruption +of human nature, or furnish any remedy for moral evil except the <q>doctrines +of the sages.</q> <q>The heart of man,</q> it says, <q>is naturally perfectly upright and correct.</q> +Sin is simply <q>a disease, to be cured by self-discipline; a debt, to be canceled +by meritorious acts; an ignorance, to be removed by study and contemplation.</q> See +Bib. Sac., 1883:292, 293; N. Englander, 1883:565; Marcus Dods, in Erasmus and other +Essays, 239. +</p> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='smallcaps'>The Indian Systems.</hi> <hi rend='italic'>Brahmanism</hi>, as expressed in the Vedas, dates back to +1000-1500 B. C. As Caird (in Faiths of the World, St. Giles Lectures, lecture 1) has shown, +it originated in the contemplation of the power in nature apart from the moral Personality +that works in and through nature. Indeed we may say that all heathenism is +man's choice of a non-moral in place of a moral God. Brahmanism is a system of pantheism, +<q>a false or illegitimate consecration of the finite.</q> All things are a manifestation +of Brahma. Hence evil is deified as well as good. And many thousand gods are +worshiped as partial representations of the living principle which moves through all. +<q>How many gods have the Hindus?</q> asked Dr. Duff of his class. Henry Drummond +thought there were about twenty-five. <q>Twenty-five?</q> responded the indignant professor; +<q>twenty-five millions of millions!</q> While the early Vedas present a comparatively +pure nature-worship, later Brahmanism becomes a worship of the vicious and +the vile, of the unnatural and the cruel. Juggernaut and the suttee did not belong to +original Hindu religion. +</p> + +<p> +Bruce, Apologetics, 15—<q>Pantheism in theory always means polytheism in practice.</q> +The early Vedas are hopeful in spirit; later Brahmanism is a religion of disappointment. +Caste is fixed and consecrated as a manifestation of God. Originally intended to +express, in its four divisions of priest, soldier, agriculturist, slave, the different degrees +of unworldliness and divine indwelling, it becomes an iron fetter to prevent all aspiration +and progress. Indian religion sought to exalt receptivity, the unity of existence, +and rest from self-determination and its struggles. Hence it ascribed to its gods the +same character as nature-forces. God was the common source of good and of evil. Its +ethics is an ethics of moral indifference. Its charity is a charity for sin, and the temperance +it desires is a temperance that will let the intemperate alone. Mozoomdar, for +example, is ready to welcome everything in Christianity but its reproof of sin and its +demand for righteousness. Brahmanism degrades woman, but it deifies the cow. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Buddhism</hi>, beginning with Buddha, 600 B. C., <q>recalls the mind to its elevation above +the finite,</q> from which Brahmanism had fallen away. Buddha was in certain respects +a reformer. He protested against caste, and proclaimed that truth and morality are for +all. Hence Buddhism, through its possession of this one grain of truth, appealed to +the human heart, and became, next to Christianity, the greatest missionary religion. +Notice then, first, its <emph>universalism</emph>. But notice also that this is a false universalism, +for it ignores individualism and leads to universal stagnation and slavery. While Christianity +is a religion of history, of will, of optimism, Buddhism is a religion of illusion, +of quietism, of pessimism; see Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 107-109. In characterizing +Buddhism as a missionary religion, we must notice, secondly, its element of <emph>altruism</emph>. +But this altruism is one which destroys the self, instead of preserving it. The future +Buddha, out of compassion for a famished tiger, permits the tiger to devour him. +<q>Incarnated as a hare, he jumps into the fire to cook himself for a meal for a beggar,—having +<pb n='182'/><anchor id='Pg182'/> +previously shaken himself three times, so that none of the insects in his fur +should perish with him</q>; see William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 283. +Buddha would deliver man, not by philosophy, nor by asceticism, but by self-renunciation. +All isolation and personality are sin, the guilt of which rests, however, not on +man, but on existence in general. +</p> + +<p> +While Brahmanism is pantheistic, Buddhism is atheistic in its spirit. Pfleiderer, Philos. +Religion, 1:285—<q>The Brahmanic Akosmism, that had explained the world as mere +seeming, led to the Buddhistic Atheism.</q> Finiteness and separateness are evil, and the +only way to purity and rest is by ceasing to exist. This is essential pessimism. The +highest morality is to endure that which must be, and to escape from reality and from +personal existence as soon as possible. Hence the doctrine of <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign>. Rhys Davids, +in his Hibbert Lectures, claims that early Buddhism meant by <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign>, not annihilation, +but the extinction of the self-life, and that this was attainable during man's present +mortal existence. But the term <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign> now means, to the great mass of those who +use it, the loss of all personality and consciousness, and absorption into the general life +of the universe. Originally the term denoted only freedom from individual desire, and +those who had entered into <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign> might again come out of it; see Ireland, Blot on +the Brain, 238. But even in its original form, <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign> was sought only from a selfish +motive. Self-renunciation and absorption in the whole was not the enthusiasm of +benevolence,—it was the refuge of despair. It is a religion without god or sacrifice. +Instead of communion with a personal God, Buddhism has in prospect only an extinction +of personality, as reward for untold ages of lonely self-conquest, extending through +many transmigrations. Of Buddha it has been truly said <q>That all the all he had for +needy man Was nothing, and his best of being was But not to be.</q> Wilkinson, Epic of +Paul, 296—<q>He by his own act dying all the time, In ceaseless effort utterly to cease, +Will willing not to will, desire desiring To be desire no more, until at last The fugitive +go free, emancipate But by becoming naught.</q> Of Christ Bruce well says: <q>What a +contrast this Healer of disease and Preacher of pardon to the worst, to Buddha, with +his religion of despair!</q> +</p> + +<p> +Buddhism is also fatalistic. It inculcates submission and compassion—merely negative +virtues. But it knows nothing of manly freedom, or of active love—the positive +virtues of Christianity. It leads men to spare others, but not to help them. Its morality +revolves around self, not around God. It has in it no organizing principle, for it +recognizes no God, no inspiration, no soul, no salvation, no personal immortality. +Buddhism would save men only by inducing them to flee from existence. To the +Hindu, family life involves sin. The perfect man must forsake wife and children. All +gratification of natural appetites and passions is evil. Salvation is not from sin, but +from desire, and from this men can be saved only by escaping from life itself. Christianity +buries sin, but saves the man; Buddha would save the man by killing him. +Christianity symbolizes the convert's entrance upon a new life by raising him from the +baptismal waters; the baptism of Buddhism should be immersion without emersion. +The fundamental idea of Brahmanism, extinction of personality, remains the same in +Buddhism; the only difference being that the result is secured by active atonement in +the former, by passive contemplation in the latter. Virtue, and the knowledge that +everything earthly is a vanishing spark of the original light, delivers man from +existence and from misery. +</p> + +<p> +Prof. G. H. Palmer, of Harvard, in The Outlook, June 19, 1897—<q>Buddhism is unlike +Christianity in that it abolishes misery by abolishing desire; denies personality instead +of asserting it; has many gods, but no one God who is living and conscious; makes a +shortening of existence rather than a lengthening of it to be the reward of righteousness. +Buddhism makes no provision for family, church, state, science, or art. It +gives us a religion that is little, when we want one that is large.</q> Dr. E. Benjamin +Andrews: <q>Schopenhauer and Spencer are merely teachers of Buddhism. They +regard the central source of all as unknowable force, instead of regarding it as a +Spirit, living and holy. This takes away all impulse to scientific investigation. We +need to start from a Person, and not from a thing.</q> +</p> + +<p> +For comparison of the sage of India, Sakya Muni, more commonly called Buddha +(properly <q>the Buddha</q> = the enlightened; but who, in spite of Edwin Arnold's +<q>Light of Asia,</q> is represented as not pure from carnal pleasures before he began his +work), with Jesus Christ, see Bib. Sac., July, 1882:458-498; W. C. Wilkinson, Edwin +Arnold, Poetizer and Paganizer; Kellogg, The Light of Asia and the Light of the +World. Buddhism and Christianity are compared in Presb. Rev., July, 1883:505-548; +Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:47-54; Mitchell, in Present Day Tracts, 6: no. 33. See also +<pb n='183'/><anchor id='Pg183'/> +Oldenberg, Buddha; Lillie, Popular Life of Buddha; Beal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, +153—<q>Buddhism declares itself ignorant of any mode of personal existence compatible +with the idea of spiritual perfection, and so far it is ignorant of God</q>; 157—<q>The +earliest idea of <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign> seems to have included in it no more than the enjoyment +of a state of rest consequent on the extinction of all causes of sorrow.</q> The impossibility +of satisfying the human heart with a system of atheism is shown by the fact +that the Buddha himself has been apotheosized to furnish an object of worship. Thus +Buddhism has reverted to Brahmanism. +</p> + +<p> +Monier Williams: <q>Mohammed has as much claim to be <q>the Light of Asia</q> as +Buddha has. What light from Buddha? Not about the heart's depravity, or the origin +of sin, or the goodness, justice, holiness, fatherhood of God, or the remedy for sin, but +only the ridding self from suffering by ridding self from life—a doctrine of merit, of +self-trust, of pessimism, and annihilation of personality.</q> Christ, himself personal, +loving and holy, shows that God is a person of holiness and love. Robert Browning: +<q>He that created love, shall not he love?</q> Only because Jesus is God, have we a +gospel for the world. The claim that Buddha is <q>the Light of Asia</q> reminds one of +the man who declared the moon to be of greater value than the sun, because it gives +light in the darkness when it is needed, while the sun gives light in the daytime when +it is not needed. +</p> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='smallcaps'>The Greek Systems.</hi> <hi rend='italic'>Pythagoras</hi> (584-504) based morality upon the principle of +numbers. <q>Moral good was identified with unity; evil with multiplicity; virtue was +harmony of the soul and its likeness to God. The aim of life was to make it represent +the beautiful order of the Universe. The whole practical tendency of Pythagoreanism +was ascetic, and included a strict self-control and an earnest culture.</q> Here +already we seem to see the defect of Greek morality in confounding the good with the +beautiful, and in making morality a mere self-development. Matheson, Messages of +the Old Religions: Greece reveals the intensity of the hour, the value of the present +life, the beauty of the world that now is. Its religion is the religion of beautiful +humanity. It anticipates the new heaven and the new earth. Rome on the other +hand stood for union, incorporation, a universal kingdom. But its religion deified +only the Emperor, not all humanity. It was the religion, not of love, but of power, +and it identified the church with the state. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Socrates</hi> (469-400) made knowledge to be virtue. Morality consisted in subordinating +irrational desires to rational knowledge. Although here we rise above a subjectively +determined good as the goal of moral effort, we have no proper sense of sin. Knowledge, +and not love, is the motive. If men know the right, they will do the right. +This is a great overvaluing of knowledge. With Socrates, teaching is a sort of midwifery—not +depositing information in the mind, but drawing out the contents of our +own inner consciousness. Lewis Morris describes it as the life-work of Socrates +to <q>doubt our doubts away.</q> Socrates holds it right to injure one's enemies. He +shows proud self-praise in his dying address. He warns against pederasty, yet compromises +with it. He does not insist upon the same purity of family life which +Homer describes in Ulysses and Penelope. Charles Kingsley, in Alton Locke, remarks +that the spirit of the Greek tragedy was 'man mastered by circumstance'; that of +modern tragedy is <q>man mastering circumstance.</q> But the Greek tragedians, while +showing man thus mastered, do still represent him as inwardly free, as in the case +of Prometheus, and this sense of human freedom and responsibility appears to some +extent in Socrates. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Plato</hi> (430-348) held that morality is pleasure in the good, as the truly beautiful, and +that knowledge produces virtue. The good is likeness to God,—here we have glimpses +of an extra-human goal and model. The body, like all matter, being inherently evil, is +a hindrance to the soul,—here we have a glimpse of hereditary depravity. But Plato +<q>reduced moral evil to the category of natural evil.</q> He failed to recognize God as +creator and master of matter; failed to recognize man's depravity as due to his own +apostasy from God; failed to found morality on the divine will rather than on man's +own consciousness. He knew nothing of a common humanity, and regarded virtue as +only for the few. As there was no common sin, so there was no common redemption. +Plato thought to reach God by intellect alone, when only conscience and heart could +lead to him. He believed in a freedom of the soul in a preëxistent state where a +choice was made between good and evil, but he believed that, after that antemundane +decision had been made, the fates determined men's acts and lives irreversibly. Reason +drives two horses, appetite and emotion, but their course has been predetermined. +</p> + +<pb n='184'/><anchor id='Pg184'/> + +<p> +Man acts as reason prompts. All sin is ignorance. There is nothing in this life but +determinism. Martineau, Types, 13, 48, 49, 78, 88—Plato in general has no proper notion +of responsibility; he reduces moral evil to the category of natural evil. His Ideas with +one exception are not causes. Cause is mind, and mind is the Good. The Good is +the apex and crown of Ideas. The Good is the highest Idea, and this highest Idea is +a Cause. Plato has a feeble conception of personality, whether in God or in man. +Yet God is a person in whatever sense man is a person, and man's personality is reflective +self-consciousness. Will in God or man is not so clear. The Right is dissolved into +the Good. Plato advocated infanticide and the killing off of the old and the helpless. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Aristotle</hi> (384-322) leaves out of view even the element of God-likeness and antemundane +evil which Plato so dimly recognized, and makes morality the fruit of mere +rational self-consciousness. He grants evil proclivities, but he refuses to call them +immoral. He advocates a certain freedom of will, and he recognizes inborn tendencies +which war against this freedom, but how these tendencies originated he cannot +say, nor how men may be delivered from them. Not all can be moral; the majority +must be restrained by fear. He finds in God no motive, and love to God is not so +much as mentioned as the source of moral action. A proud, composed, self-centered, +and self-contained man is his ideal character. See Nicomachean Ethics, 7:6, and 10:10; +Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:92-126. Alexander, Theories of Will, 39-54—Aristotle +held that desire and reason are the springs of action. Yet he did not hold that knowledge +of itself would make men virtuous. He was a determinist. Actions are free +only in the sense of being devoid of external compulsion. He viewed slavery as +both rational and right. Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 76—<q>While Aristotle +attributed to the State a more complete personality than it really possessed, he did +not grasp the depth and meaning of the personality of the individual.</q> A. H. Strong, +Christ in Creation, 289—Aristotle had no conception of the unity of humanity. His doctrine +of unity did not extend beyond the State. <q>He said that <q>the whole is before the +parts,</q> but he meant by <q>the whole</q> only the pan-Hellenic world, the commonwealth of +Greeks; he never thought of humanity, and the word <q>mankind</q> never fell from his +lips. He could not understand the unity of humanity, because he knew nothing of +Christ, its organizing principle.</q> On Aristotle's conception of God, see James Ten +Broeke, in Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892—God is recognized as personal, yet he is only the +Greek Reason, and not the living, loving, providential Father of the Hebrew revelation. +Aristotle substitutes the logical for the dynamical in his dealing with the divine causality. +God is thought, not power. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Epicurus</hi> (342-270) regarded happiness, the subjective feeling of pleasure, as the highest +criterion of truth and good. A prudent calculating for prolonged pleasure is +the highest wisdom. He regards only this life. Concern for retribution and for a future +existence is folly. If there are gods, they have no concern for men. <q>Epicurus, on +pretense of consulting for their ease, complimented the gods, and bowed them out +of existence.</q> Death is the falling apart of material atoms and the eternal cessation of +consciousness. The miseries of this life are due to imperfection in the fortuitously +constructed universe. The more numerous these undeserved miseries, the greater our +right to seek pleasure. Alexander, Theories of the Will, 55-75—The Epicureans held +that the soul is composed of atoms, yet that the will is free. The atoms of the soul are +excepted from the law of cause and effect. An atom may decline or deviate in the +universal descent, and this is the Epicurean idea of freedom. This indeterminism was +held by all the Greek sceptics, materialists though they were. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Zeno</hi>, the founder of the Stoic philosophy (340-264), regarded virtue as the only good. +Thought is to subdue nature. The free spirit is self-legislating, self-dependent, self-sufficient. +Thinking, not feeling, is the criterion of the true and the good. Pleasure is +the consequence, not the end of moral action. There is an irreconcilable antagonism of +existence. Man cannot reform the world, but he can make himself perfect. Hence an +unbounded pride in virtue. The sage never repents. There is not the least recognition +of the moral corruption of mankind. There is no objective divine ideal, or revealed +divine will. The Stoic discovers moral law only within, and never suspects his own +moral perversion. Hence he shows self-control and justice, but never humility or love. +He needs no compassion or forgiveness, and he grants none to others. Virtue is not +an actively outworking character, but a passive resistance to irrational reality. Man +may retreat into himself. The Stoic is indifferent to pleasure and pain, not because he +believes in a divine government, or in a divine love for mankind, but as a proud defiance +of the irrational world. He has no need of God or of redemption. As the Epicurean +gives himself to enjoyment of the world, the Stoic gives himself to contempt of the +<pb n='185'/><anchor id='Pg185'/> +world. In all afflictions, each can say, <q>The door is open.</q> To the Epicurean, the +refuge is intoxication; to the Stoic, the refuge is suicide: <q>If the house smokes, quit +it.</q> Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:62-161, from whom much of this account of the +Greeks systems is condensed, describes Epicureanism and Stoicism as alike making +morality subjective, although Epicureanism regarded spirit as determined by nature, +while Stoicism regarded nature as determined by spirit. +</p> + +<p> +The Stoics were materialists and pantheists. Though they speak of a personal God, +this is a figure of speech. False opinion is at the root of all vice. Chrysippus denied +what we now call the liberty of indifference, saying that there could not be an effect +without a cause. Man is enslaved to passion. The Stoics could not explain how a +vicious man could become virtuous. The result is apathy. Men act only according to +character, and this a doctrine of fate. The Stoic indifference or apathy in misfortune +is not a bearing of it at all, but rather a cowardly retreat from it. It is in the actual +suffering of evil that Christianity finds <q>the soul of good.</q> The office of misfortune is +disciplinary and purifying; see Seth, Ethical Principles, 417. <q>The shadow of the +sage's self, projected on vacancy, was called God, and, as the sage had long since +abandoned interest in practical life, he expected his Divinity to do the same.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Stoic reverenced God just because of his unapproachable majesty. Christianity +sees in God a Father, a Redeemer, a carer for our minute wants, a deliverer from +our sin. It teaches us to see in Christ the humanity of the divine, affinity with +God, God's supreme interest in his handiwork. For the least of his creatures Christ +died. Kinship with God gives dignity to man. The individuality that Stoicism +lost in the whole, Christianity makes the end of the creation. The State exists to +develop and promote it. Paul took up and infused new meaning into certain phrases of +the Stoic philosophy about the freedom and royalty of the wise man, just as John +adopted and glorified certain phrases of Alexandrian philosophy about the Word. +Stoicism was lonely and pessimistic. The Stoics said that the best thing was not to +be born; the next best thing was to die. Because Stoicism had no God of helpfulness +and sympathy, its virtue was mere conformity to nature, majestic egoism and +self-complacency. In the Roman <hi rend='italic'>Epictetus</hi> (89), <hi rend='italic'>Seneca</hi> (65), and <hi rend='italic'>Marcus Aurelius</hi> +(121-180), the religious element comes more into the foreground, and virtue appears +once more as God-likeness; but it is possible that this later Stoicism was influenced +by Christianity. On Marcus Aurelius, see New Englander, July, 1881:415-431; Capes, +Stoicism. +</p> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='smallcaps'>Systems of Western Asia.</hi> <hi rend='italic'>Zoroaster</hi> (1000 B. C. ?), the founder of the Parsees, +was a dualist, at least so far as to explain the existence of evil and of good by the original +presence in the author of all things of two opposing principles. Here is evidently +a limit put upon the sovereignty and holiness of God. Man is not perfectly dependent +upon him, nor is God's will an unconditional law for his creatures. As opposed to the +Indian systems, Zoroaster's insistence upon the divine personality furnished a far +better basis for a vigorous and manly morality. Virtue was to be won by hard struggle +of free beings against evil. But then, on the other hand, this evil was conceived as +originally due, not to finite beings themselves, but either to an evil deity who warred +against the good, or to an evil principle in the one deity himself. The burden of guilt +is therefore shifted from man to his maker. Morality becomes subjective and unsettled. +Not love to God or imitation of God, but rather self-love and self-development, +furnish the motive and aim of morality. No fatherhood or love is recognized in the +deity, and other things besides God (<hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, fire) are worshiped. There can be no depth +to the consciousness of sin, and no hope of divine deliverance. +</p> + +<p> +It is the one merit of Parseeism that it recognizes the moral conflict of the world; its +error is that it carries this moral conflict into the very nature of God. We can apply +to Parseeism the words of the Conference of Foreign Mission Boards to the Buddhists of +Japan: <q>All religions are expressions of man's sense of dependence, but only one provides +fellowship with God. All religions speak of a higher truth, but only one speaks +of that truth as found in a loving personal God, our Father. All religions show man's +helplessness, but only one tells of a divine Savior, who offers to man forgiveness of sin, +and salvation through his death, and who is now a living person, working in and with +all who believe in him, to make them holy and righteous and pure.</q> Matheson, Messages +of Old Religions, says that Parseeism recognizes an obstructive element in the +nature of God himself. Moral evil is reality; but there is no reconciliation, nor is it +shown that all things work together for good. See Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:47-54; +Faiths of the World (St. Giles Lectures), 109-144; Mitchell, in Present Day Tracts, 3: +no. 25; Whitney on the Avesta, in Oriental and Linguistic Studies. +</p> + +<pb n='186'/><anchor id='Pg186'/> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Mohammed</hi> (570-632 A. D.), the founder of Islam, gives us in the Koran a system +containing four dogmas of fundamental immorality, namely, polygamy, slavery, persecution, +and suppression of private judgement. Mohammedanism is heathenism in +monotheistic form. Its good points are its conscientiousness and its relation to God. +It has prospered because it has preached the unity of God, and because it is a book-religion. +But both these it got from Judaism and Christianity. It has appropriated +the Old Testament saints and even Jesus. But it denies the death of Christ and sees no +need of atonement. The power of sin is not recognized. The idea of sin, in Moslems, is +emptied of all positive content. Sin is simply a falling short, accounted for by the +weakness and shortsightedness of man, inevitable in the fatalistic universe, or not +remembered in wrath by the indulgent and merciful Father. Forgiveness is indulgence, +and the conception of God is emptied of the quality of justice. Evil belongs only +to the individual, not to the race. Man attains the favor of God by good works, based +on prophetic teaching. Morality is not a fruit of salvation, but a means. There is no +penitence or humility, but only self-righteousness; and this self-righteousness is +consistent with great sensuality, unlimited divorce, and with absolute despotism in +family, civil and religious affairs. There is no knowledge of the fatherhood of God or +of the brotherhood of man. In all the Koran, there is no such declaration as that <emph><q>God +so loved the world</q> (John 3:16)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +The submission of Islam is submission to an arbitrary will, not to a God of love. +There is no basing of morality in love. The highest good is the sensuous happiness of +the individual. God and man are external to one another. Mohammed is a teacher but +not a priest. Mozley, Miracles, 140, 141—<q>Mohammed had no faith in human nature. +There were two things which he thought men could do, and would do, for the glory of +God—transact religious <emph>forms</emph>, and <emph>fight</emph>, and upon these two points he was severe; but +within the sphere of common practical life, where man's great trial lies, his code exhibits +the disdainful laxity of a legislator who accomodates his rule to the recipient, and +shows his estimate of the recipient by the accommodation which he adopts.... +<q>Human nature is weak,</q> said he.</q> Lord Houghton: The Koran is all wisdom, all law, +all religion, for all time. Dead men bow before a dead God. <q>Though the world rolls +on from change to change, And realms of thought expand, The letter stands without +expanse or range, Stiff as a dead man's hand.</q> Wherever Mohammedanism has gone, +it has either found a desert or made one. Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., Dec. 1882:866—<q>The +Koran has frozen Mohammedan thought; to obey is to abandon progress.</q> +Muir, in Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 14—<q>Mohammedanism reduces men to a dead level +of social depression, despotism, and semi-barbarism. Islam is the work of man; Christianity +of God.</q> See also Faiths of the World (St. Giles Lectures, Second Series), 361-396; +J. F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, 1:448-488; 280-317; Great Religions of the +World, published by the Harpers; Zwemer, Moslem Doctrine of God. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. The person and character of Christ.</head> + +<p> +A. The conception of Christ's person as presenting deity and humanity +indissolubly united, and the conception of Christ's character, with its faultless +and all-comprehending excellence, cannot be accounted for upon any +other hypothesis than that they were historical realities. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The stylobate of the Parthenon at Athens rises about three inches in the middle of +the 101 feet of the front, and four inches in the middle of the 228 feet of the flanks. A +nearly parallel line is found in the entablature. The axes of the columns lean inward +nearly three inches in their height of 34 feet, thus giving a sort of pyramidal character +to the structure. Thus the architect overcame the apparent sagging of horizontal lines, +and at the same time increased the apparent height of the edifice; see Murray, Handbook +of Greece, 5th ed., 1884, 1:308, 309; Ferguson, Handbook of Architecture, 268-270. +The neglect to counteract this optical illusion has rendered the Madeleine in Paris a stiff +and ineffective copy of the Parthenon. The Galilean peasant who should minutely +describe these peculiarities of the Parthenon would prove, not only that the edifice +was a historical reality, but that he had actually seen it. Bruce, Apologetics, 343—<q>In +reading the memoirs of the evangelists, you feel as one sometimes feels in a picture-gallery. +Your eye alights on the portrait of a person whom you do not know. You +look at it intently for a few moments and then remark to a companion: <q>That must +be like the original,—it is so life-like.</q></q> Theodore Parker: <q>It would take a Jesus to +<pb n='187'/><anchor id='Pg187'/> +forge a Jesus.</q> See Row, Bampton Lectures, 1877:178-219, and in Present Day Tracts, +4: no. 22; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ; Barry, Boyle Lecture on Manifold +Witness for Christ. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) No source can be assigned from which the evangelists could have +derived such a conception. The Hindu avatars were only temporary +unions of deity with humanity. The Greeks had men half-deified, but no +unions of God and man. The monotheism of the Jews found the person +of Christ a perpetual stumbling-block. The Essenes were in principle more +opposed to Christianity than the Rabbinists. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer, Data of Ethics, 279—<q>The coëxistence of a perfect man and an +imperfect society is impossible; and could the two coëxist, the resulting conduct would +not furnish the ethical standard sought.</q> We must conclude that the perfect manhood +of Christ is a miracle, and the greatest of miracles. Bruce, Apologetics, 346, 351—<q>When +Jesus asks: <q>Why callest thou me good?</q> he means: <q>Learn first what goodness +is, and call no man good till you are sure that he deserves it.</q> Jesus' goodness was +entirely free from religious scrupulosity; it was distinguished by humanity; it was full +of modesty and lowliness.... Buddhism has flourished 2000 years, though little is known +of its founder. Christianity might have been so perpetuated, but it is not so. I want +to be sure that the ideal has been embodied in an actual life. Otherwise it is only +poetry, and the obligation to conform to it ceases.</q> For comparison of Christ's incarnation +with Hindu, Greek, Jewish, and Essene ideas, see Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of +Christ, Introduction. On the Essenes, see Herzog, Encyclop., art,: Essener; Pressensé, +Jesus Christ, Life, Times and Work, 84-87; Lightfoot on Colossians, 349-419; Godet, +Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) No mere human genius, and much less the genius of Jewish fishermen, +could have originated this conception. Bad men invent only such +characters as they sympathize with. But Christ's character condemns badness. +Such a portrait could not have been drawn without supernatural +aid. But such aid would not have been given to fabrication. The conception +can be explained only by granting that Christ's person and character +were historical realities. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Between Pilate and Titus 30,000 Jews are said to have been crucified around the walls +of Jerusalem. Many of these were young men. What makes one of them stand out on +the pages of history? There are two answers: The character of Jesus was a perfect +character, and, He was God as well as man. Gore, Incarnation, 63—<q>The Christ of +the gospels, if he be not true to history, represents a combined effort of the creative +imagination without parallel in literature. But the literary characteristics of Palestine +in the first century make the hypothesis of such an effort morally impossible.</q> +The Apocryphal gospels show us what mere imagination was capable of producing. +That the portrait of Christ is not puerile, inane, hysterical, selfishly assertive, and self-contradictory, +can be due only to the fact that it is the photograph from real life. +</p> + +<p> +For a remarkable exhibition of the argument from the character of Jesus, see Bushnell, +Nature and the Supernatural, 276-332. Bushnell mentions the originality and vastness +of Christ's plan, yet its simplicity and practical adaptation; his moral traits of +independence, compassion, meekness, wisdom, zeal, humility, patience; the combination +in him of seemingly opposite qualities. With all his greatness, he was condescending +and simple; he was unworldly, yet not austere; he had strong feelings, yet was self-possessed; +he had indignation toward sin, yet compassion toward the sinner; he showed +devotion to his work, yet calmness under opposition; universal philanthropy, yet susceptibility +to private attachments; the authority of a Savior and Judge, yet the gratitude +and the tenderness of a son; the most elevated devotion, yet a life of activity and +exertion. See chapter on The Moral Miracle, in Bruce, Miraculous Element of the +Gospels, 43-78. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The acceptance and belief in the New Testament descriptions of +Jesus Christ cannot be accounted for except upon the ground that the +person and character described had an actual existence. +</p> + +<pb n='188'/><anchor id='Pg188'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) If these descriptions were false, there were witnesses still living who +had known Christ and who would have contradicted them. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) There was +no motive to induce acceptance of such false accounts, but every motive to +the contrary. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The success of such falsehoods could be explained only +by supernatural aid, but God would never have thus aided falsehood. This +person and character, therefore, must have been not fictitious but real; and +if real, then Christ's words are true, and the system of which his person +and character are a part is a revelation from God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>The counterfeit may for a season Deceive the wide earth; But the lie waxing great +comes to labor, And truth has its birth.</q> Matthew Arnold, The Better Part: <q>Was +Christ a man like us? Ah, let us see, If we then too can be Such men as he!</q> When +the blatant sceptic declared: <q>I do not believe that such a man as Jesus Christ ever +lived,</q> George Warren merely replied: <q>I wish I were like him!</q> Dwight L. Moody +was called a hypocrite, but the stalwart evangelist answered: <q>Well, suppose I am. +How does that make your case any better? I know some pretty mean things about myself; +but you cannot say anything against my Master.</q> Goethe: <q>Let the culture of +the spirit advance forever; let the human spirit broaden itself as it will; yet it will +never go beyond the height and moral culture of Christianity, as it glitters and shines +in the gospels.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Renan, Life of Jesus: <q>Jesus founded the absolute religion, excluding nothing, +determining nothing, save its essence.... The foundation of the true religion is indeed +his work. After him, there is nothing left but to develop and fructify.</q> And a Christian +scholar has remarked: <q>It is an astonishing proof of the divine guidance vouchsafed +to the evangelists that no man, of their time or since, has been able to touch the +picture of Christ without debasing it.</q> We may find an illustration of this in the +words of Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 207—<q>Jesus' doctrine of marriage was +ascetic, his doctrine of property was communistic, his doctrine of charity was sentimental, +his doctrine of non-resistance was such as commends itself to Tolstoi, but not +to many others of our time. With the example of Jesus, it is the same as with his +teachings. Followed unreservedly, would it not justify those who say: <q>The hope +of the race is in its extinction</q>; and bring all our joys and sorrows to a sudden end?</q> +To this we may answer in the words of Huxley, who declares that Jesus Christ is <q>the +noblest ideal of humanity which mankind has yet worshiped.</q> Gordon, Christ of To-Day, +179—<q>The question is not whether Christ is good enough to represent the Supreme +Being, but whether the Supreme Being is good enough to have Christ for his representative. +John Stuart Mill looks upon the Christian religion as the worship of Christ, +rather than the worship of God, and in this way he explains the beneficence of its +influence.</q> +</p> + +<p> +John Stuart Mill, Essays on Religion, 254—<q>The most valuable part of the effect on +the character which Christianity has produced, by holding up in a divine person a standard +of excellence and a model for imitation, is available even to the absolute unbeliever, +and can never more be lost to humanity. For it is Christ rather than God whom Christianity +has held up to believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity. It is the God +incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of nature, who, being idealized, has taken +so great and salutary hold on the modern mind. And whatever else may be taken +away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left: a unique figure, not more unlike +all his precursors than all his followers, even those who had the direct benefit of his +personal preaching.... Who among his disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable +of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character +revealed in the Gospels?... About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of +personal originality combined with profundity of insight which, if we abandon the +idle expectation of finding scientific precision where something very different was +aimed at, must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have +no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom +our species can boast. When this preëminent genius is combined with the qualities of +probably the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that mission who ever existed +upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man +as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even +for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract +into the concrete than the endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life. +<pb n='189'/><anchor id='Pg189'/> +When to this we add that, to the conception of the rational sceptic, it remains a possibility +that Christ actually was ... a man charged with a special, express and unique +commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue, we may well conclude that +the influences of religion on the character, which will remain after rational criticism +has done its utmost against the evidences of religion, are well worth preserving, and +that what they lack in direct strength as compared with those of a firmer belief is more +than compensated by the greater truth and rectitude of the morality they sanction.</q> +See also Ullmann, Sinlessness of Jesus; Alexander, Christ and Christianity, 129-157; +Schaff, Person of Christ; Young, The Christ in History; George Dana Boardman, The +Problem of Jesus. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. The testimony of Christ to himself—as being a messenger from +God and as being one with God.</head> + +<p> +Only one personage in history has claimed to teach absolute truth, to be +one with God, and to attest his divine mission by works such as only God +could perform. +</p> + +<p> +A. This testimony cannot be accounted for upon the hypothesis that +Jesus was an intentional deceiver: for (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the perfectly consistent holiness +of his life; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the unwavering confidence with which he challenged +investigation of his claims and staked all upon the result; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the vast +improbability of a lifelong lie in the avowed interests of truth; and (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) +the impossibility that deception should have wrought such blessing to the +world,—all show that Jesus was no conscious impostor. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Fisher, Essays on the Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 515-538—Christ knew how vast +his claims were, yet he staked all upon them. Though others doubted, he never doubted +himself. Though persecuted unto death, he never ceased his consistent testimony. +Yet he lays claim to humility: <emph>Mat. 11:29—<q>I am meek and lowly in heart.</q></emph> How can we reconcile +with humility his constant self-assertion? We answer that Jesus' self-assertion was +absolutely essential to his mission, for he and the truth were one: he could not assert +the truth without asserting himself, and he could not assert himself without asserting +the truth. Since he was the truth, he needed to say so, for men's sake and for the +truth's sake, and he could be meek and lowly in heart in saying so. Humility is not +self-depreciation, but only the judging of ourselves according to God's perfect standard. +<q>Humility</q> is derived from <q><foreign rend='italic'>humus</foreign></q>. It is the coming down from airy and vain +self-exploitation to the solid ground, the hard-pan, of actual fact. +</p> + +<p> +God requires of us only so much humility as is consistent with truth. The self-glorification +of the egotist is nauseating, because it indicates gross ignorance or misrepresentation +of self. But it is a duty to be self-asserting, just so far as we represent the +truth and righteousness of God. There is a noble self-assertion which is perfectly consistent +with humility. Job must stand for his integrity. Paul's humility was not of +the Uriah Heep variety. When occasion required, he could assert his manhood and +his rights, as at Philippi and at the Castle of Antonia. So the Christian should frankly +say out the truth that is in him. Each Christian has an experience of his own, and +should tell it to others. In testifying to the truth he is only following the example of +<emph><q>Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession</q> (1 Tim. 6:13)</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Nor can Jesus' testimony to himself be explained upon the hypothesis +that he was self-deceived: for this would argue (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) a weakness and +folly amounting to positive insanity. But his whole character and life +exhibit a calmness, dignity, equipoise, insight, self-mastery, utterly inconsistent +with such a theory. Or it would argue (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) a self-ignorance and self-exaggeration +which could spring only from the deepest moral perversion. +But the absolute purity of his conscience, the humility of his spirit, the +self-denying beneficence of his life, show this hypothesis to be incredible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 39—If he were man, then to demand that all +the world should bow down to him would be worthy of scorn like that which we feel +for some straw-crowned monarch of Bedlam. Forrest, The Christ of History and of +<pb n='190'/><anchor id='Pg190'/> +Experience, 22, 76—Christ never united with his disciples in prayer. He went up into +the mountain to pray, but not to pray <emph>with them</emph>: <emph>Luke 9:18—<q rend='pre'>as he was</q></emph> alone <emph><q rend='post'>praying, his disciples +were with him.</q></emph> The consciousness of preëxistence is the indispensable precondition +of the total demand which he makes in the Synoptics. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, +81, 82—We value the testimony of Christians to their communion with God. Much more +should we value the testimony of Christ. Only one who, first being divine, also knew +that he was divine, could reveal heavenly things with the clearness and certainty that +belong to the utterances of Jesus. In him we have something very different from the +momentary flashes of insight which leave us in all the greater darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 5—<q>Self-respect is bottomed upon the ability to become +what one desires to be; and, if the ability steadily falls short of the task, the springs +of self-respect dry up; the motives of happy and heroic action wither. Science, art, +generous civic life, and especially religion, come to man's rescue,</q>—showing him his +true greatness and breadth of being in God. The State is the individual's larger self. +Humanity, and even the universe, are parts of him. It is the duty of man to enable +all men to be men. It is possible for men not only truthfully but also rationally to +assert themselves, even in earthly affairs. Chatham to the Duke of Devonshire: <q>My +Lord, I believe I can save this country, and that no one else can.</q> Leonardo da Vinci, +in his thirtieth year, to the Duke of Milan: <q>I can carry through every kind of work +in sculpture, in clay, marble, and bronze; also in painting I can execute everything +that can be demanded, as well as any one whosoever.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Horace: <q>Exegi monumentum ære perennius.</q> Savage, Life beyond Death, 209—A +famous old minister said once, when a young and zealous enthusiast tried to get him +to talk, and failing, burst out with, <q>Have you no religion at all?</q> <q>None <emph>to speak of</emph>,</q> +was the reply. When Jesus perceived a tendency in his disciples to self-glorification, +he urged silence; but when he saw the tendency to introspection and inertness, he +bade them proclaim what he had done for them (<emph>Mat. 8:4</emph>; <emph>Mark 5:19</emph>). It is never right for +the Christian to proclaim himself; but, if Christ had not proclaimed himself, the world +could never have been saved. Rush Rhees. Life of Jesus of Nazareth, 235-237—<q>In +the teaching of Jesus, two topics have the leading place—the Kingdom of God, and +himself. He sought to be Lord, rather than Teacher only. Yet the Kingdom is not +one of power, national and external, but one of fatherly love and of mutual brotherhood.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Did Jesus do anything for effect, or as a mere example? Not so. His baptism had +meaning for him as a consecration of himself to death for the sins of the world, and +his washing of the disciples' feet was the fit beginning of the paschal supper and the +symbol of his laying aside his heavenly glory to purify us for the marriage supper of the +Lamb. Thomas à Kempis: <q>Thou art none the holier because thou art praised, and +none the worse because thou art censured. What thou art, that thou art, and it avails +thee naught to be called any better than thou art in the sight of God.</q> Jesus' consciousness +of his absolute sinlessness and of his perfect communion with God is the +strongest of testimonies to his divine nature and mission. See Theological Eclectic, 4:137; +Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 153; J. S. Mill, Essays on Religion, 253; Young, Christ +of History; Divinity of Jesus Christ, by Andover Professors, 37-62. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +If Jesus, then, cannot be charged with either mental or moral unsoundness, +his testimony must be true, and he himself must be one with God and +the revealer of God to men. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Neither Confucius nor Buddha claimed to be divine, or the organs of divine revelation, +though both were moral teachers and reformers. Zoroaster and Pythagoras +apparently believed themselves charged with a divine mission, though their earliest +biographers wrote centuries after their death. Socrates claimed nothing for himself +which was beyond the power of others. Mohammed believed his extraordinary states +of body and soul to be due to the action of celestial beings; he gave forth the Koran +as <q>a warning to all creatures,</q> and sent a summons to the King of Persia and the +Emperor of Constantinople, as well as to other potentates, to accept the religion of +Islam; yet he mourned when he died that he could not have opportunity to correct +the mistakes of the Koran and of his own life. For Confucius or Buddha, Zoroaster +or Pythagoras, Socrates or Mohammed to claim all power in heaven and earth, would +show insanity or moral perversion. But this is precisely what Jesus claimed. He was +either mentally or morally unsound, or his testimony is true. See Baldensperger, +Selbstbewusstsein Jesu; E. Ballentine, Christ his own Witness. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='191'/><anchor id='Pg191'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. The Historical Results of the Propagation of Scripture +Doctrine.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>The rapid progress of the gospel in the first centuries of our era +shows its divine origin.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +A. That Paganism should have been in three centuries supplanted by +Christianity, is an acknowledged wonder of history. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity was the most astonishing revolution +of faith and worship ever known. Fifty years after the death of Christ, there +were churches in all the principal cities of the Roman Empire. Nero (37-68) found (as +Tacitus declares) an <q>ingens multitudo</q> of Christians to persecute. Pliny writes to +Trajan (52-117) that they <q>pervaded not merely the cities but the villages and country +places, so that the temples were nearly deserted.</q> Tertullian (160-230) writes: <q>We are +but of yesterday, and yet we have filled all your places, your cities, your islands, your +castles, your towns, your council-houses, even your camps, your tribes, your senate, +your forum. We have left you nothing but your temples.</q> In the time of the emperor +Valerian (253-268), the Christians constituted half the population of Rome. The conversion +of the emperor Constantine (272-337) brought the whole empire, only 300 years +after Jesus' death, under the acknowledged sway of the gospel. See McIlvaine and +Alexander, Evidences of Christianity. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The wonder is the greater when we consider the obstacles to the +progress of Christianity: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The scepticism of the cultivated classes; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the prejudice and +hatred of the common people; and (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the persecutions set on foot by +government. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Missionaries even now find it difficult to get a hearing among the cultivated +classes of the heathen. But the gospel appeared in the most enlightened age of +antiquity—the Augustan age of literature and historical inquiry. Tacitus called the +religion of Christ <q>exitiabilis superstitio</q>—<q>quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos +appellabat.</q> Pliny: <q>Nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam et immodicam.</q> +If the gospel had been false, its preachers would not have ventured into the +centres of civilization and refinement; or if they had, they would have been detected. +(<hi rend='italic'>b)</hi> Consider the interweaving of heathen religions with all the relations of life. Christians +often had to meet the furious zeal and blind rage of the mob,—as at Lystra and +Ephesus. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Rawlinson, in his Historical Evidences, claims that the Catacombs of +Rome comprised nine hundred miles of streets and seven millions of graves within a +period of four hundred years—a far greater number than could have died a natural +death—and that vast multitudes of these must have been massacred for their faith. +The Encyclopædia Britannica, however, calls the estimate of De Marchi, which Rawlinson +appears to have taken as authority, a great exaggeration. Instead of nine hundred +miles of streets, Northcote has three hundred fifty. The number of interments to +correspond would be less than three millions. The Catacombs began to be deserted by +the time of Jerome. The times when they were universally used by Christians could +have been hardly more than two hundred years. They did not begin in sand-pits. +There were three sorts of tufa: (1) rocky, used for quarrying and too hard for Christian +purposes; (2) sandy, used for sand-pits, too soft to permit construction of galleries +and tombs; (3) granular, that used by Christians. The existence of the Catacombs +must have been well known to the heathen. After Pope Damasus the exaggerated +reverence for them began. They were decorated and improved. Hence many paintings +are of later date than 400, and testify to papal polity, not to that of early Christianity. +The bottles contain, not blood, but wine of the eucharist celebrated at +the funeral. +</p> + +<p> +Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 256-258, calls attention to Matthew Arnold's +description of the needs of the heathen world, yet his blindness to the true remedy: +<q>On that hard pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated +lust Made human life a hell. In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble +lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian Way; He made a feast, +drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers,—No easier nor no quicker +<pb n='192'/><anchor id='Pg192'/> +passed The impracticable hours.</q> Yet with mingled pride and sadness, Mr. Arnold fastidiously +rejects more heavenly nutriment. Of Christ he says: <q>Now he is dead! Far +hence he lies, In the lorn Syrian town, And on his grave, with shining eyes, The Syrian +stars look down.</q> He sees that the millions <q>Have such need of joy, And joy whose +grounds are true, And joy that should all hearts employ As when the past was new!</q> +The want of the world is: <q>One mighty wave of thought and joy, Lifting mankind +amain.</q> But the poet sees no ground of hope: <q>Fools! that so often here, Happiness +mocked our prayer, I think might make us fear A like event elsewhere,—Make us not +fly to dreams, But moderate desire.</q> He sings of the time when Christianity was young: +<q>Oh, had I lived in that great day, How had its glory new Filled earth and heaven, and +caught away My ravished spirit too!</q> But desolation of spirit does not bring with it +any lowering of self-esteem, much less the humility which deplores the presence and +power of evil in the soul, and sighs for deliverance. <emph><q>They that are whole have no need of a +physician, but they that are sick</q> (Mat. 9:12)</emph>. Rejecting Christ, Matthew Arnold embodies in +his verse <q>the sweetness, the gravity, the strength, the beauty, and the languor of +death</q> (Hutton, Essays, 302). +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. The wonder becomes yet greater when we consider the natural insufficiency +of the means used to secure this progress. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The proclaimers of the gospel were in general unlearned men, belonging +to a despised nation. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The gospel which they proclaimed was a +gospel of salvation through faith in a Jew who had been put to an ignominious +death. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) This gospel was one which excited natural repugnance, +by humbling men's pride, striking at the root of their sins, and demanding +a life of labor and self-sacrifice. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The gospel, moreover, was an exclusive +one, suffering no rival and declaring itself to be the universal and only +religion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The early Christians were more unlikely to make converts than modern Jews are +to make proselytes, in vast numbers, in the principal cities of Europe and America. +Celsus called Christianity <q>a religion of the rabble.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The cross was the Roman +gallows—the punishment of slaves. Cicero calls it <q>servitutis extremum summumque +supplicium.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) There were many bad religions: why should the mild Roman Empire +have persecuted the only good one? The answer is in part: Persecution did not originate +with the official classes; it proceeded really from the people at large. Tacitus +called Christians <q>haters of the human race.</q> Men recognized in Christianity a foe to +all their previous motives, ideals, and aims. Altruism would break up the old society, +for every effort that centered in self or in the present life was stigmatized by the gospel +as unworthy. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Heathenism, being without creed or principle, did not care to +propagate itself. <q>A man must be very weak,</q> said Celsus, <q>to imagine that Greeks +and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, and Libya, can ever unite under the same system of +religion.</q> So the Roman government would allow no religion which did not participate +in the worship of the State. <q>Keep yourselves from idols,</q> <q>We worship no +other God,</q> was the Christian's answer. Gibbon, Hist. Decline and Fall, 1: chap. 15, +mentions as secondary causes: (1) the zeal of the Jews; (2) the doctrine of immortality; +(3) miraculous powers; (4) virtues of early Christians; (5) privilege of participation +in church government. But these causes were only secondary, and all would +have been insufficient without an invincible persuasion of the truth of Christianity. +For answer to Gibbon, see Perrone, Prelectiones Theologicæ, 1:133. +</p> + +<p> +Persecution destroys falsehood by leading its advocates to investigate the grounds +of their belief; but it strengthens and multiplies truth by leading its advocates to see +more clearly the foundations of their faith. There have been many conscientious persecutors: +<emph>John 16:2—<q>They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth +you shall think that he offereth service unto God.</q></emph> The Decretal of Pope Urban II reads: <q>For we +do not count them to be homicides, to whom it may have happened, through their burning +zeal against the excommunicated, to put any of them to death.</q> St. Louis, King +of France, urged his officers <q>not to argue with the infidel, but to subdue unbelievers +by thrusting the sword into them as far as it will go.</q> Of the use of the rack in +England on a certain occasion, it was said that it was used with all the tenderness which +the nature of the instrument would allow. This reminds us of Isaak Walton's instruction +<pb n='193'/><anchor id='Pg193'/> +as to the use of the frog: <q>Put the hook through his mouth and out at his gills; +and, in so doing, use him as though you loved him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Robert Browning, in his Easter Day, 275-288, gives us what purports to be A Martyr's +Epitaph, inscribed upon a wall of the Catacombs, which furnishes a valuable contrast +to the sceptical and pessimistic strain of Matthew Arnold: <q>I was born sickly, poor +and mean, A slave: no misery could screen The holders of the pearl of price from +Cæsar's envy: therefore twice I fought with beasts, and three times saw My children +suffer by his law; At length my own release was earned: I was some time in being +burned, But at the close a Hand came through The fire above my head, and drew My +soul to Christ, whom now I see. Sergius, a brother, writes for me This testimony on +the wall—For me, I have forgot it all.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The progress of a religion so unprepossessing and uncompromising to +outward acceptance and dominion, within the space of three hundred years, +cannot be explained without supposing that divine power attended its promulgation, +and therefore that the gospel is a revelation from God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:527—<q>In the Kremlin Cathedral, whenever the Metropolitan +advanced from the altar to give his blessing, there was always thrown under +his feet a carpet embroidered with the eagle of old Pagan Rome, to indicate that the +Christian Church and Empire of Constantinople had succeeded and triumphed over it.</q> +On this whole section, see F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 91; McIlvaine, +Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 139. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>The beneficent influence of the Scripture doctrines and precepts, +wherever they have had sway, shows their divine origin.</hi> Notice: +</p> + +<p> +A. Their influence on civilization in general, securing a recognition of +principles which heathenism ignored, such as Garbett mentions: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the +importance of the individual; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the law of mutual love; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the sacredness +of human life; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) the doctrine of internal holiness; (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) the sanctity +of home; (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) monogamy, and the religious equality of the sexes; (<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) identification +of belief and practice. +</p> + +<p> +The continued corruption of heathen lands shows that this change is not +due to any laws of merely natural progress. The confessions of ancient +writers show that it is not due to philosophy. Its only explanation is that +the gospel is the power of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Garbett, Dogmatic Faith, 177-186; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, chap. +on Christianity and the Individual; Brace, Gesta Christi, preface, vi—<q>Practices and +principles implanted, stimulated or supported by Christianity, such as regard for the +personality of the weakest and poorest; respect for woman; duty of each member of +the fortunate classes to raise up the unfortunate; humanity to the child, the prisoner, +the stranger, the needy, and even to the brute; unceasing opposition to all forms of +cruelty, oppression and slavery; the duty of personal purity, and the sacredness of +marriage; the necessity of temperance; obligation of a more equitable division of the +profits of labor, and of greater coöperation between employers and employed; the right +of every human being to have the utmost opportunity of developing his faculties, and +of all persons to enjoy equal political and social privileges; the principle that the injury +of one nation is the injury of all, and the expediency and duty of unrestricted trade +and intercourse between all countries; and finally, a profound opposition to war, a +determination to limit its evils when existing, and to prevent its arising by means of +international arbitration.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Max Müller: <q>The concept of humanity is the gift of Christ.</q> Guizot, History of +Civilization, 1: Introd., tells us that in ancient times the individual existed for the sake +of the State; in modern times the State exists for the sake of the individual. <q>The +individual is a discovery of Christ.</q> On the relations between Christianity and Political +Economy, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, pages 443-460; on the cause of +the changed view with regard to the relation of the individual to the State, see page +207—<q>What has wrought the change? Nothing but the death of the Son of God. When +it was seen that the smallest child and the lowest slave had a soul of such worth +<pb n='194'/><anchor id='Pg194'/> +that Christ left his throne and gave up his life to save it, the world's estimate of +values changed, and modern history began.</q> Lucian, the Greek satirist and humorist, +160 A. D., said of the Christians: <q>Their first legislator [Jesus] has put it into their +heads that they are all brothers.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is this spirit of common brotherhood which has led in most countries to the abolition +of cannibalism, infanticide, widow-burning, and slavery. Prince Bismarck: <q>For +social well-being I ask nothing more than Christianity without phrases</q>—which +means the religion of the deed rather than of the creed. Yet it is only faith in the historic +revelation of God in Christ which has made Christian deeds possible. Shaler, +Interpretation of Nature, 232-278—Aristotle, if he could look over society to-day, would +think modern man a new species, in his going out in sympathy to distant peoples. +This cannot be the result of natural selection, for self-sacrifice is not profitable to the +individual. Altruistic emotions owe their existence to God. Worship of God has +flowed back upon man's emotions and has made them more sympathetic. Self-consciousness +and sympathy, coming into conflict with brute emotions, originate the sense +of sin. Then begins the war of the natural and the spiritual. Love of nature and +absorption in others is the true <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Nirvana</foreign>. Not physical science, but the humanities, are +most needed in education. +</p> + +<p> +H. E. Hersey, Introd. to Browning's Christmas Eve, 19— <q>Sidney Lanier tells us that +the last twenty centuries have spent their best power upon the development of personality. +Literature, education, government, and religion, have learned to recognize +the individual as the unit of force. Browning goes a step further. He declares that +so powerful is a complete personality that its very touch gives life and courage and +potency. He turns to history for the inspiration of enduring virtue and the stimulus +for sustained effort, and he finds both in Jesus Christ.</q> J. P. Cooke, Credentials of +Science, 43—The change from the ancient philosopher to the modern investigator is the +change from self-assertion to self-devotion, and the great revolution can be traced to +the influence of Christianity and to the spirit of humility exhibited and inculcated by +Christ. Lewes, Hist. Philos., 1:408—Greek morality never embraced any conception +of humanity; no Greek ever attained to the sublimity of such a point of view. +</p> + +<p> +Kidd, Social Evolution, 165, 287—It is not intellect that has pushed forward the world +of modern times: it is the altruistic feeling that originated in the cross and sacrifice +of Christ. The French Revolution was made possible by the fact that humanitarian +ideas had undermined the upper classes themselves, and effective resistance was impossible. +Socialism would abolish the struggle for existence on the part of individuals. +What security would be left for social progress? Removing all restrictions upon population +ensures progressive deterioration. A non-socialist community would outstrip +a socialist community where all the main wants of life were secure. The real tendency +of society is to bring all the people into <emph>rivalry</emph>, not only on a footing of political equality, +but on conditions of equal social opportunities. The State in future will interfere and +control, in order to preserve or secure free competition, rather than to suspend it. The +goal is not socialism or State management, but competition in which all shall have +equal advantages. The evolution of human society is not primarily intellectual but +religious. The winning races are the religious races. The Greeks had more intellect, +but we have more civilization and progress. The Athenians were as far above us as we +are above the negro race. Gladstone said that we are intellectually weaker than the +men of the middle ages. When the intellectual development of any section of the race +has for the time being outrun its ethical development, natural selection has apparently +weeded it out, like any other unsuitable product. Evolution is developing <emph>reverence</emph>, +with its allied qualities, mental energy, resolution, enterprise, prolonged and +concentrated application, simple minded and single minded devotion to duty. Only +religion can overpower selfishness and individualism and ensure social progress. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Their influence upon individual character and happiness, wherever +they have been tested in practice. This influence is seen (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) in the moral +transformations they have wrought—as in the case of Paul the apostle, and +of persons in every Christian community; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) in the self-denying labors +for human welfare to which they have led—as in the case of Wilberforce and +Judson; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) in the hopes they have inspired in times of sorrow and death. +</p> + +<p> +These beneficent fruits cannot have their source in merely natural causes, +apart from the truth and divinity of the Scriptures; for in that case the +<pb n='195'/><anchor id='Pg195'/> +contrary beliefs would be accompanied by the same blessings. But since +we find these blessings only in connection with Christian teaching, we may +justly consider this as their cause. This teaching, then, must be true, and +the Scriptures must be a divine revelation. Else God has made a lie to be +the greatest blessing to the race. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The first Moravian missionaries to the West Indies walked six hundred miles to take +ship, worked their passage, and then sold themselves as slaves, in order to get the privilege +of preaching to the negroes.... The father of John G. Paton was a stocking-weaver. +The whole family, with the exception of the very small children, worked from +6 a. m. to 10 p. m., with one hour for dinner at noon and a half hour each for breakfast +and supper. Yet family prayer was regularly held twice a day. In these breathing-spells +for daily meals John G. Paton took part of his time to study the Latin Grammar, +that he might prepare himself for missionary work. When told by an uncle that, +if he went to the New Hebrides, the cannibals would eat him, he replied: <q>You yourself +will soon be dead and buried, and I had as lief be eaten by cannibals as by worms.</q> +The Aneityumese raised arrow-root for fifteen years and sold it to pay the £1200 +required for printing the Bible in their own language. Universal church-attendance +and Bible-study make those South Sea Islands the most heavenly place on earth on +the Sabbath-day. +</p> + +<p> +In 1839, twenty thousand negroes in Jamaica gathered to begin a life of freedom. +Into a coffin were put the handcuffs and shackles of slavery, relics of the whipping-post +and the scourge. As the clock struck twelve at night, a preacher cried with the +first stroke: <q>The monster is dying!</q> and so with every stroke until the last, when he +cried: <q>The monster is dead!</q> Then all rose from their knees and sang: <q>Praise God +from whom all blessings flow!</q>... <q>What do you do that for?</q> said the sick Chinaman +whom the medical missionary was tucking up in bed with a care which the patient +had never received since he was a baby. The missionary took the opportunity to tell +him of the love of Christ.... The aged Australian mother, when told that her two +daughters, missionaries in China, had both of them been murdered by a heathen mob, +only replied: <q>This decides me; I will go to China now myself, and try to teach those +poor creatures what the love of Jesus means.</q>... Dr. William Ashmore: <q>Let one +missionary die, and ten come to his funeral.</q> A shoemaker, teaching neglected boys +and girls while he worked at his cobbler's bench, gave the impulse to Thomas Guthrie's +life of faith. +</p> + +<p> +We must judge religions not by their ideals, but by their performances. Omar Khayyam +and Mozoomdar give us beautiful thoughts, but the former is not Persia, nor is +the latter India. <q>When the microscopic search of scepticism, which has hunted the +heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its +attention to human society and has found on this planet a place ten miles square where +a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his +children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy protected, +manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when +sceptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ +has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security +possible, it will then be in order for the sceptical literati to move thither and to ventilate +their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the very religion +they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate before they rob the +Christian of his hope and humanity of its faith in that Savior who alone has given that +hope of eternal life which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its +terrors and the grave of its gloom.</q> On the beneficent influence of the gospel, see +Schmidt, Social Results of Early Christianity; D. J. Hill, The Social Influence of Christianity. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='196'/><anchor id='Pg196'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter III. Inspiration Of The Scriptures.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Definition of Inspiration.</head> + +<p> +Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit of God upon the minds of the +Scripture writers which made their writings the record of a progressive +divine revelation, sufficient, when taken together and interpreted by the +same Spirit who inspired them, to lead every honest inquirer to Christ and +to salvation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice the significance of each part of this definition: 1. Inspiration is an influence +of the Spirit of God. It is not a merely naturalistic phenomenon or psychological +vagary, but is rather the effect of the inworking of the personal divine Spirit. 2. Yet +inspiration is an influence upon the mind, and not upon the body. God secures his end +by awakening man's rational powers, and not by an external or mechanical communication. +3. The writings of inspired men are the record of a revelation. They are not +themselves the revelation. 4. The revelation and the record are both progressive. +Neither one is complete at the beginning. 5. The Scripture writings must be taken +together. Each part must be viewed in connection with what precedes and with what +follows. 6. The same Holy Spirit who made the original revelations must interpret to +us the record of them, if we are to come to the knowledge of the truth. 7. So used +and so interpreted, these writings are sufficient, both in quantity and in quality, for +their religious purpose. 8. That purpose is, not to furnish us with a model history or +with the facts of science, but to lead us to Christ and to salvation. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Inspiration is therefore to be defined, not by its method, but by its +result. It is a general term including all those kinds and degrees of the +Holy Spirit's influence which were brought to bear upon the minds of the +Scripture writers, in order to secure the putting into permanent and written +form of the truth best adapted to man's moral and religious needs. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Inspiration may often include revelation, or the direct communication +from God of truth to which man could not attain by his unaided +powers. It may include illumination, or the quickening of man's cognitive +powers to understand truth already revealed. Inspiration, however, +does not necessarily and always include either revelation or illumination. +It is simply the divine influence which secures a transmission of needed +truth to the future, and, according to the nature of the truth to be transmitted, +it may be only an inspiration of superintendence, or it may be also +and at the same time an inspiration of illumination or revelation. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It is not denied, but affirmed, that inspiration may qualify for oral +utterance of truth, or for wise leadership and daring deeds. Men may be +inspired to render external service to God's kingdom, as in the cases of +Bezalel and Samson; even though this service is rendered unwillingly or +unconsciously, as in the cases of Balaam and Cyrus. All human intelligence, +indeed, is due to the inbreathing of that same Spirit who created +man at the beginning. We are now concerned with inspiration, however, +only as it pertains to the authorship of Scripture. +</p> + +<pb n='197'/><anchor id='Pg197'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 2:7—<q>And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of +life; and man became a living soul</q></emph>; <emph>Ex. 31:2, 3—<q>I have called by name Bezalel ... and I have filled him with +the Spirit of God ... in all manner of workmanship</q></emph>; <emph>Judges 13:24, 25—<q>called his name Samson: and the +child grew, and Jehovah blessed him. And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him</q></emph>; <emph>Num. 23:5—<q>And Jehovah +put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak</q></emph>; <emph>2 Chron. 36:22—<q>Jehovah +stirred up the spirit of Cyrus</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 44:28—<q>that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd</q></emph>; <emph>45:5—<q>I will gird thee, +though thou hast not known me</q></emph>; <emph>Job 32:8—<q>there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them +understanding.</q></emph> These passages show the true meaning of 2 Tim. 3:16—<q>Every scripture inspired +of God.</q> The word θεόπνευστος is to be understood as alluding, not to the flute-player's +breathing into his instrument, but to God's original inbreathing of life. The flute is +passive, but man's soul is active. The flute gives out only what it receives, but the +inspired man under the divine influence is a conscious and free originator of thought +and expression. Although the inspiration of which we are to treat is simply the inspiration +of the Scripture writings, we can best understand this narrower use of the term +by remembering that all real knowledge has in it a divine element, and that we are +possessed of complete consciousness only as we live, move, and have our being in God. +Since Christ, the divine Logos or Reason, is <emph><q>the light which lighteth every man</q> (John 1:9)</emph>, a +special influence of <emph><q>the spirit of Christ which was in them</q> (1 Pet. 1:11)</emph> rationally accounts for +the fact that <emph><q>men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q> (2 Pet. 1:21)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +It may help our understanding of terms above employed if we adduce instances of +</p> + +<lg> +<l>(1) Inspiration without revelation, as in Luke or Acts, <emph>Luke 1:1-3</emph>;</l> +<l>(2) Inspiration including revelation, as in the Apocalypse, <emph>Rev. 1:1, 11</emph>;</l> +<l>(3) Inspiration without illumination, as in the prophets, <emph>1 Pet. 1:11</emph>;</l> +<l>(4) Inspiration including illumination, as in the case of Paul, <emph>1 Cor. 2:12</emph>;</l> +<l>(5) Revelation without inspiration, as in God's words from Sinai, <emph>Ex. 20:1, 22</emph>;</l> +<l>(6) Illumination without inspiration, as in modern preachers, <emph>Eph. 2:20</emph>.</l> +</lg> + +<p> +Other definitions are those of Park: <q>Inspiration is such an influence over the +writers of the Bible that all their teachings which have a religious character are trustworthy</q>; +of Wilkinson: <q>Inspiration is help from God to keep the report of divine +revelation free from error. Help to whom? No matter to whom, so the result is +secured. The final result, viz.: the record or report of revelation, this must be free +from error. Inspiration may affect one or all of the agents employed</q>; of Hovey: +<q>Inspiration was an influence of the Spirit of God on those powers of men which are +concerned in the reception, retention and expression of religious truth—an influence +so pervading and powerful that the teaching of inspired men was according to the +mind of God. Their teaching did not in any instance embrace all truth in respect to +God, or man, or the way of life; but it comprised just so much of the truth on any particular +subject as could be received in faith by the inspired teacher and made useful to +those whom he addressed. In this sense the teaching of the original documents composing +our Bible may be pronounced free from error</q>; of G. B. Foster: <q>Revelation is +the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in divine self-expression there: +Inspiration is the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in apprehension and +appropriation of the divine expression. Revelation has logical but not chronological +priority</q>; of Horton, Inspiration and the Bible, 10-13—<q>We mean by Inspiration +exactly those qualities or characteristics which are the marks or notes of the Bible.... +We call our Bible inspired; by which we mean that by reading and studying it we +find our way to God, we find his will for us, and we find how we can conform ourselves +to his will.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, 496, while nobly setting forth the naturalness +of revelation, has misconceived the relation of inspiration to revelation by giving +priority to the former: <q>The idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically +involved in the notion of a living God. Speech is natural to spirit; and if God is by +nature spirit, it will be to him a matter of nature to reveal himself. But if he speaks +to man, it will be through men; and those who hear best will be most possessed of +God. This possession is termed <q>inspiration.</q> God inspires, man reveals: revelation +is the mode or form—word, character, or institution—in which man embodies what +he has received. The terms, though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one denoting +the process on its inner side, the other on its outer.</q> This statement, although approved +by Sanday, Inspiration, 124, 125, seems to us almost precisely to reverse the right meaning +of the words. We prefer the view of Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 54—<q>God +has first revealed himself, and then has inspired men to interpret, record and apply +<pb n='198'/><anchor id='Pg198'/> +this revelation. In redemption, inspiration is the formal factor, as revelation is the +material factor. The men are inspired, as Prof. Stowe said. The thoughts are inspired, +as Prof. Briggs said. The words are inspired, as Prof. Hodge said. The warp and woof +of the Bible is πνεῦμα: <emph><q>the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit</q> (John 6:63)</emph>. Its fringes +run off, as was inevitable, into the secular, the material, the psychic.</q> Phillips Brooks, +Life, 2:351—<q>If the true revelation of God is in Christ, the Bible is not properly a revelation, +but the history of a revelation. This is not only a fact but a necessity, for a +person cannot be revealed in a book, but must find revelation, if at all, in a person. +The centre and core of the Bible must therefore be the gospels, as the story of Jesus.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Some, like Priestley, have held that the gospels are authentic but not inspired. We +therefore add to the proof of the genuineness and credibility of Scripture, the proof of +its inspiration. Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 11—<q>Priestley's belief in supernatural +revelation was intense. He had an absolute distrust of reason as qualified to +furnish an adequate knowledge of religious things, and at the same time a perfect confidence +in reason as qualified to prove that negative and to determine the contents of the +revelation.</q> We might claim the historical truth of the gospels, even if we did not +call them inspired. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 341—<q>Christianity brings with it a doctrine +of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but is not based upon it.</q> Warfield and +Hodge, Inspiration, 8—<q>While the inspiration of the Scriptures is true, and being true +is fundamental to the adequate interpretation of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in +the first instance, a principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion.</q> +</p> + +<p> +On the idea of Revelation, see Ladd, in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:156-178; on +Inspiration, <hi rend='italic'>ibid.</hi>, Apr. 1883:225-248. See Henderson on Inspiration (2nd ed.), 58, 205, +249, 303, 310. For other works on the general subject of Inspiration, see Lee, Bannerman, +Jamieson, Macnaught; Garbett, God's Word Written; Aids to Faith, essay on +Inspiration. Also, Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:205; Westcott, Introd. to Study of the +Gospels, 27-65; Bib. Sac., 1:97; 4:154; 12:217; 15:29, 314; 25:192-198; Dr. Barrows, in +Bib. Sac., 1867:593; 1872:428; Farrar, Science in Theology, 208; Hodge and Warfield, in +Presb. Rev., Apr. 1881:225-261; Manly, The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration; Watts, +Inspiration; Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 350; Whiton, Gloria Patri, 136; Hastings, +Bible Dict., 1:296-299; Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Proof of Inspiration.</head> + +<p> +1. Since we have shown that God has made a revelation of himself to +man, we may reasonably presume that he will not trust this revelation +wholly to human tradition and misrepresentation, but will also provide a +record of it essentially trustworthy and sufficient; in other words, that the +same Spirit who originally communicated the truth will preside over its +publication, so far as is needed to accomplish its religious purpose. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Since all natural intelligence, as we have seen, presupposes God's indwelling, and +since in Scripture the all-prevailing atmosphere, with its constant pressure and effort +to enter every cranny and corner of the world, is used as an illustration of the impulse +of God's omnipotent Spirit to vivify and energize every human soul (<emph>Gen. 2:7</emph>; <emph>Job 32:8</emph>), +we may infer that, but for sin, all men would be morally and spiritually inspired (<emph>Num. +11:29—<q>Would that all Jehovah's people were prophets, that Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them!</q></emph> <emph>Is. 59:2—<q>your +iniquities have separated between you and your God</q></emph>). We have also seen that God's method +of communicating his truth in matters of religion is presumably analogous to his +method of communicating secular truth, such as that of astronomy or history. There +is an original delivery to a single nation, and to single persons in that nation, that it may +through them be given to mankind. Sanday, Inspiration, 140—<q>There is a <emph><q>purpose of +God according to selection</q> (Rom. 9:11)</emph>; there is an <emph><q>election</q></emph> or <emph><q>selection of grace</q></emph>; and the object +of that selection was Israel and those who take their name from Israel's Messiah. If +a tower is built in ascending tiers, those who stand upon the lower tiers are yet raised +above the ground, and some may be raised higher than others, but the full and unimpeded +view is reserved for those who mount upward to the top. And that is the place +destined for us if we will take it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +If we follow the analogy of God's working in other communications of knowledge, +we shall reasonably presume that he will preserve the record of his revelations in +written and accessible documents, handed down from those to whom these revelations +were first communicated, and we may expect that these documents will be kept sufficiently +<pb n='199'/><anchor id='Pg199'/> +correct and trustworthy to accomplish their religious purpose, namely, that +of furnishing to the honest inquirer a guide to Christ and to salvation. The physician +commits his prescriptions to writing; the Clerk of Congress records its proceedings; +the State Department of our government instructs our foreign ambassadors, not orally, +but by dispatches. There is yet greater need that revelation should be recorded, since +it is to be transmitted to distant ages; it contains long discourses; it embraces mysterious +doctrines. Jesus did not write himself; for he was the subject, not the mere +channel, of revelation. His unconcern about the apostles' immediately committing to +writing what they saw and heard is inexplicable, if he did not expect that inspiration +would assist them. +</p> + +<p> +We come to the discussion of Inspiration with a presumption quite unlike that of +Kuenen and Wellhausen, who write in the interest of almost avowed naturalism. +Kuenen, in the opening sentences of his Religion of Israel, does indeed assert the rule +of God in the world. But Sanday, Inspiration, 117, says well that <q>Kuenen keeps this +idea very much in the background. He expended a whole volume of 593 large octavo +pages (Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, London, 1877) in proving that the prophets +were <emph>not</emph> moved to speak by God, but that their utterances were all their own.</q> The following +extract, says Sanday, indicates the position which Dr. Kuenen really held: <q>We +do not allow ourselves to be deprived of God's presence in history. In the fortunes +and development of nations, and not least clearly in those of Israel, we see Him, the +holy and all-wise Instructor of his human children. But the old <emph>contrasts</emph> must be altogether +set aside. So long as we derive a separate part of Israel's religious life directly +from God, and allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to intervene in even +one single point, so long also our view of the whole continues to be incorrect, and we +see ourselves here and there necessitated to do violence to the well-authenticated contents +of the historical documents. It is the supposition of a natural development alone +which accounts for all the phenomena</q> (Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, 585). +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. Jesus, who has been proved to be not only a credible witness, but a +messenger from God, vouches for the inspiration of the Old Testament, by +quoting it with the formula: <q>It is written</q>; by declaring that <q>one jot +or one tittle</q> of it <q>shall in no wise pass away,</q> and that <q>the Scripture +cannot be broken.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Jesus quotes from four out of the five books of Moses, and from the Psalms, Isaiah, +Malachi, and Zechariah, with the formula, <q>it is written</q>; see <emph>Mat. 4:4, 6, 7</emph>; <emph>11:10</emph>; <emph>Mark 14:27</emph>; +<emph>Luke 4:4-12</emph>. This formula among the Jews indicated that the quotation was from a +sacred book and was divinely inspired. Jesus certainly regarded the Old Testament +with as much reverence as the Jews of his day. He declared that <emph><q>one jot or one tittle shall +in no wise pass away from the law</q> (Mat. 5:18)</emph>. He said that <emph><q>the scripture cannot be broken</q> (John 10:35)</emph> = <q>the +normative and judicial authority of the Scripture cannot be set aside; notice +here [in the singular, ἡ γραφή] the idea of the unity of Scripture</q> (Meyer). And +yet our Lord's use of O. T. Scripture was wholly free from the superstitious literalism +which prevailed among the Jews of his day. The phrases <emph><q>word of God</q> (John 10:35; +Mark 7:13)</emph>, <emph><q>wisdom of God</q> (Luke 11:49)</emph> and <emph><q>oracles of God</q> (Rom. 3:2)</emph> probably designate +the original revelations of God and not the record of these in Scripture; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1 Sam. 9:27</emph>; +<emph>1 Chron. 17:3</emph>; <emph>Is. 40:8</emph>; <emph>Mat. 13:19</emph>; <emph>Luke 3:2</emph>; <emph>Acts 8:25</emph>. Jesus refuses assent to the O. T. law +respecting the Sabbath (<emph>Mark 2:27</emph> <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>), external defilements (<emph>Mark 7:15</emph>), divorce (<emph>Mark 10:2</emph> +<hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>). He <emph><q>came not to destroy but to fulfil</q> (Mat. 5:17)</emph>; yet he fulfilled the law by bringing out +its inner spirit in his perfect life, rather than by formal and minute obedience to its +precepts; see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35. +</p> + +<p> +The apostles quote the O. T. as the utterance of God (<emph>Eph. 4:8</emph>—διὸ λέγει, <hi rend='italic'>sc.</hi> θεός). +Paul's insistence upon the form of even a single word, as in <emph>Gal. 3:16</emph>, and his use of the +O. T. for purposes of allegory, as in <emph>Gal 4:21-31</emph>, show that in his view the O. T. text was +sacred. Philo, Josephus and the Talmud, in their interpretations of the O. T., fall continually +into a <q>narrow and unhappy literalism.</q> <q>The N. T. does not indeed escape +Rabbinical methods, but even where these are most prominent they seem to affect the +form far more than the substance. And through the temporary and local form the +writer constantly penetrates to the very heart of the O. T. teaching;</q> see Sanday, +Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, 87; Henderson, Inspiration, 254. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. Jesus commissioned his apostles as teachers and gave them promises +of a supernatural aid of the Holy Spirit in their teaching, like the promises +made to the Old Testament prophets. +</p> + +<pb n='200'/><anchor id='Pg200'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 28:19, 20—<q>Go ye ... teaching ... and lo, I am with you.</q></emph> Compare promises to Moses (<emph>Ex. +3:12</emph>), Jeremiah (<emph>Jer. 1:5-8</emph>), Ezekiel (<emph>Ezek. 2</emph> and <emph>3</emph>). See also <emph>Is. 44:3</emph> and <emph>Joel 2:28—<q>I will +pour my Spirit upon thy seed</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 10:7—<q>as ye go, preach</q></emph>; <emph>19—<q>be not anxious how or what ye shall +speak</q></emph>; <emph>John 14:26—<q>the Holy Spirit ... shall teach you all things</q></emph>; <emph>15:26, 27—<q>the Spirit of truth ... +shall bear witness of me: and ye also bear witness</q></emph> = the Spirit shall witness in and through you; +<emph>16:13—<q>he shall guide you into all the truth</q></emph> = (1) limitation—all <emph>the</emph> truth of Christ, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, not +of philosophy or science, but of religion; (2) comprehension—<emph>all</emph> the truth within this +limited range, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, sufficiency of Scripture as rule of faith and practice (Hovey); <emph>17:8—<q>the +words which thou gavest me I have given unto them</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 1:4—<q>he charged them ... to wait for +the promise of the Father</q></emph>; <emph>John 20:22—<q>he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.</q></emph> +Here was both promise and communication of the personal Holy Spirit. Compare <emph>Mat. +10:19, 20—<q>it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of +your Father that speaketh in you.</q></emph> See Henderson, Inspiration, 247, 248. +</p> + +<p> +Jesus' testimony here is the testimony of God. In <emph>Deut. 18:18</emph>, it is said that God will +put his words into the mouth of the great Prophet. In <emph>John 12:49, 50</emph>, Jesus says: <emph><q>I spake +not from myself, but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should +speak. And I know that his commandment is life eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath +said unto me, so I speak.</q></emph> <emph>John 17:7, 8—<q>all things whatsoever thou hast given me are from thee: for the words +which thou gavest me I have given unto them.</q></emph> <emph>John 8:40—<q>a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard +from God.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. The apostles claim to have received this promised Spirit, and under +his influence to speak with divine authority, putting their writings upon a +level with the Old Testament Scriptures. We have not only direct statements +that both the matter and the form of their teaching were supervised +by the Holy Spirit, but we have indirect evidence that this was the case in +the tone of authority which pervades their addresses and epistles. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Statements</hi>:—<emph>1 Cor. 2:10, 13—<q>unto us God revealed them through the Spirit.... Which things also we +speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth</q></emph>; <emph>11:23—<q>I received of the Lord +that which also I delivered unto you</q></emph>; <emph>12:8, 28</emph>—<emph>the λόγος σοφίας was apparently a gift peculiar to +the apostles</emph>; <emph>14:37, 38—<q>the things which I write unto you ... they are the commandment of the Lord</q></emph>; +<emph>Gal. 1:12—<q>neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus +Christ</q></emph>; <emph>1 Thess. 4:2, 8—<q>ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus.... Therefore he that rejecteth, +rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.</q></emph> The following passages put the +teaching of the apostles on the same level with O. T. Scripture: <emph>1 Pet. 1:11, 12—<q>Spirit of +Christ which was in them</q></emph> [O. T. prophets];—[N. T. preachers] <emph><q>preached the gospel unto you by the +Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 1:21</emph>—O. T. prophets <emph><q>spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>3:2—<q>remember +the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets</q></emph> [O. T.], <emph><q>and the commandment of the Lord and +Savior through your apostles</q></emph> [N. T.]; 16—<emph><q rend='pre'>wrest</q></emph> [Paul's Epistles], <emph>as they do also the</emph> <emph>other scriptures</emph>, +<emph><q rend='post'>unto their own destruction.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>Ex. 4:14-16</emph>; <emph>7:1</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Implications</hi>:—<emph>2 Tim. 3:16—<q>Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable</q></emph>—a clear implication +of inspiration, though not a direct statement of it = <emph>there is a divinely inspired +Scripture</emph>. In <emph>1 Cor. 5:3-5</emph>, Paul, commanding the Corinthian church with regard to the +incestuous person, was arrogant if not inspired. There are more imperatives in the +Epistles than in any other writings of the same extent. Notice the continual asseveration +of authority, as in <emph>Gal. 1:1, 2</emph>, and the declaration that disbelief of the record is sin, +as in <emph>1 John 5:10, 11</emph>. <emph>Jude 3—<q rend='pre'>the faith which was once for all</q></emph> (ἅπαξ) <emph><q rend='post'>delivered unto the saints.</q></emph> See +Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:122; Henderson, Inspiration (2nd ed.), 34, 234; Conant, Genesis, +Introd., xiii, note; Charteris, New Testament Scriptures: They claim truth, unity, +authority. +</p> + +<p> +The passages quoted above show that inspired men distinguished inspiration from +their own unaided thinking. These inspired men claim that their inspiration is the +same with that of the prophets. <emph>Rev. 22:6—<q>the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his +angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass</q></emph> = inspiration gave them supernatural +knowledge of the future. As inspiration in the O. T. was the work of the pre-incarnate +Christ, so inspiration in the N. T. is the work of the ascended and glorified +Christ by his Holy Spirit. On the Relative Authority of the Gospels, see Gerhardt, +in Am. Journ. Theol., Apl. 1899:275-294, who shows that not the words of Jesus in the +gospels are the final revelation, but rather the teaching of the risen and glorified +Christ in the Acts and the Epistles. The Epistles are the posthumous works of Christ. +Pattison, Making of the Sermon, 23—<q>The apostles, believing themselves to be inspired +<pb n='201'/><anchor id='Pg201'/> +teachers, often preached without texts; and the fact that their successors did not follow +their example shows that for themselves they made no such claim. Inspiration +ceased, and henceforth authority was found in the use of the words of the now complete +Scriptures.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +5. The apostolic writers of the New Testament, unlike professedly +inspired heathen sages and poets, gave attestation by miracles or prophecy +that they were inspired by God, and there is reason to believe that the +productions of those who were not apostles, such as Mark, Luke, Hebrews, +James, and Jude, were recommended to the churches as inspired, by apostolic +sanction and authority. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The twelve wrought miracles (<emph>Mat. 10:1</emph>). Paul's <emph><q>signs of an apostle</q> (2 Cor. 13:12)</emph> = miracles. +Internal evidence confirms the tradition that Mark was the <q>interpreter of +Peter,</q> and that Luke's gospel and the Acts had the sanction of Paul. Since the purpose +of the Spirit's bestowment was to qualify those who were to be the teachers and +founders of the new religion, it is only fair to assume that Christ's promise of the Spirit +was valid not simply to the twelve but to all who stood in their places, and to these not +simply as speakers, but, since in this respect they had a still greater need of divine +guidance, to them as writers also. +</p> + +<p> +The epistle to the Hebrews, with the letters of James and Jude, appeared in the lifetime +of some of the twelve, and passed unchallenged; and the fact that they all, with +the possible exception of 2 Peter, were very early accepted by the churches founded +and watched over by the apostles, is sufficient evidence that the apostles regarded them +as inspired productions. As evidences that the writers regarded their writings as of +universal authority, see <emph>1 Cor. 1:2—<q>unto the church of God which is at Corinth ... with all that call +upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place,</q></emph> etc.; <emph>7:17—<q>so ordain I in all the churches</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 4:16—<q>And +when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. +3:15, 16—<q>our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you.</q></emph> See Bartlett, +in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1880:23-57; Bib. Sac., Jan. 1884:204, 205. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson, Systematic Theology, 40—<q>Miraculous gifts were bestowed at Pentecost +on many besides apostles. Prophecy was not an uncommon gift during the apostolic +period.</q> There is no antecedent improbability that inspiration should extend to +others than to the principal leaders of the church, and since we have express instances +of such inspiration in oral utterances (<emph>Acts 11:28</emph>; <emph>21:9, 10</emph>) it seems natural that there +should have been instances of inspiration in written utterances also. In some cases +this appears to have been only an inspiration of superintendence. Clement of Alexandria +says only that Peter neither forbade nor encouraged Mark in his plan of writing +the gospel. Irenæus tells us that Mark's gospel was written after the death of +Peter. Papias says that Mark wrote down what he remembered to have heard from +Peter. Luke does not seem to have been aware of any miraculous aid in his writing, +and his methods appear to have been those of the ordinary historian. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +6. The chief proof of inspiration, however, must always be found in the +internal characteristics of the Scriptures themselves, as these are disclosed +to the sincere inquirer by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the Holy +Spirit combines with the teaching of the Bible to convince the earnest +reader that this teaching is as a whole and in all essentials beyond the power +of man to communicate, and that it must therefore have been put into permanent +and written form by special inspiration of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 105—<q>The testimony of the Spirit is an argument +from identity of effects—the doctrines of experience and the doctrines of the +Bible—to identity of cause.... God-wrought experience proves a God-wrought +Bible.... This covers the Bible as a whole, if not the whole of the Bible. It is true +so far as I can test it. It is to be believed still further if there is no other evidence.</q> +Lyman Abbott, in his Theology of an Evolutionist, 105, calls the Bible <q>a record of +man's laboratory work in the spiritual realm, a history of the dawning of the consciousness +of God and of the divine life in the soul of man.</q> This seems to us unduly +subjective. We prefer to say that the Bible is also God's witness to us of his presence +and working in human hearts and in human history—a witness which proves its +<pb n='202'/><anchor id='Pg202'/> +divine origin by awakening in us experiences similar to those which it describes, and +which are beyond the power of man to originate. +</p> + +<p> +G. P. Fisher, in Mag. of Christ. Lit., Dec. 1892:239—<q>Is the Bible infallible? Not in +the sense that all its statements extending even to minutiæ in matters of history and +science are strictly accurate. Not in the sense that every doctrinal and ethical statement +in all these books is incapable of amendment. The whole must sit in judgment +on the parts. Revelation is progressive. There is a human factor as well as a divine. +The treasure is in earthen vessels. But the Bible is infallible in the sense that whoever +surrenders himself in a docile spirit to its teaching will fall into no hurtful error in +matters of faith and charity. Best of all, he will find in it the secret of a new, holy and +blessed life, <emph><q>hidden with Christ in God</q> (Col. 3:3)</emph>. The Scriptures are the witness to Christ.... +Through the Scriptures he is truly and adequately made known to us.</q> Denney, +Death of Christ, 314—<q>The unity of the Bible and its inspiration are correlative +terms. If we can discern a real unity in it—and I believe we can when we see that it +converges upon and culminates in a divine love bearing the sin of the world—then +that unity and its inspiration are one and the same thing. And it is not only inspired +as a whole, it is the only book that is inspired. It is the only book in the world to +which God sets his seal in our hearts when we read in search of an answer to the +question, How shall a sinful man be righteous with God?... The conclusion of our +study of Inspiration should be the conviction that the Bible gives us a body of doctrine—a +<emph><q>faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints</q> (Jude 3)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Theories of Inspiration.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. The Intuition-theory.</head> + +<p> +This holds that inspiration is but a higher development of that natural +insight into truth which all men possess to some degree; a mode of intelligence +in matters of morals and religion which gives rise to sacred books, as +a corresponding mode of intelligence in matters of secular truth gives rise +to great works of philosophy or art. This mode of intelligence is regarded +as the product of man's own powers, either without special divine influence +or with only the inworking of an impersonal God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This theory naturally connects itself with Pelagian and rationalistic views of man's +independence of God, or with pantheistic conceptions of man as being himself the highest +manifestation of an all-pervading but unconscious intelligence. Morell and F. W. +Newman in England, and Theodore Parker in America, are representatives of this +theory. See Morell, Philos. of Religion, 127-179—<q>Inspiration is only a higher potency +of what every man possesses in some degree.</q> See also Francis W. Newman (brother +of John Henry Newman), Phases of Faith (= phases of unbelief); Theodore Parker, +Discourses of Religion, and Experiences as a Minister: <q>God is infinite; therefore he is +immanent in nature, yet transcending it; immanent in spirit, yet transcending that. +He must fill each point of spirit, as of space; matter must unconsciously obey; man, +conscious and free, has power to a certain extent to disobey, but obeying, the immanent +God acts in man as much as in nature</q>—quoted in Chadwick, Theodore Parker, +271. Hence Parker's view of Inspiration: If the conditions are fulfilled, inspiration +comes in proportion to man's gifts and to his use of those gifts. Chadwick himself, in +his Old and New Unitarianism, 68, says that <q>the Scriptures are inspired just so far as +they are inspiring, and no more.</q> +</p> + +<p> +W. C. Gannett, Life of Ezra Stiles Gannett, 196—<q>Parker's spiritualism affirmed, as +the grand truth of religion, the immanence of an infinitely perfect God in matter and +mind, and his activity in both spheres.</q> Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:178-180—<q>Theodore +Parker treats the regular results of the human faculties as an immediate +working of God, and regards the Principia of Newton as inspired.... What then +becomes of the human personality? He calls God not only omnipresent, but omniactive. +Is then Shakespeare only by courtesy author of Macbeth?... If this were +more than rhetorical, it would be unconditional pantheism.</q> Both nature and man +are other names for God. Martineau is willing to grant that our intuitions and ideals +are expressions of the Deity in us, but our personal reasoning and striving, he thinks, +cannot be attributed to God. The word νοῦς has no plural: intellect, in whatever subject +manifested, being all one, just as a truth is one and the same, in however many +<pb n='203'/><anchor id='Pg203'/> +persons' consciousness it may present itself; see Martineau, Seat of Authority, 403. +Palmer, Studies in Theological Definition, 27—<q>We can draw no sharp distinction +between the human mind discovering truth, and the divine mind imparting revelation.</q> +Kuenen belongs to this school. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +With regard to this theory we remark: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Man has, indeed, a certain natural insight into truth, and we grant +that inspiration uses this, so far as it will go, and makes it an instrument in +discovering and recording facts of nature or history. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In the investigation, for example, of purely historical matters, such as Luke records, +merely natural insight may at times have been sufficient. When this was the case, +Luke may have been left to the exercise of his own faculties, inspiration only inciting +and supervising the work. George Harris, Moral Evolution, 413—<q>God could not +reveal himself <emph>to</emph> man, unless he first revealed himself <emph>in</emph> man. If it should be written +in letters on the sky: <q>God is good,</q>—the words would have no meaning, unless goodness +had been made known already in human volitions. Revelation is not by an occasional +stroke, but by a continuous process. It is not superimposed, but inherent.... +Genius is inspired; for the mind which perceives truth must be responsive to the +Mind that made things the vehicles of thought.</q> Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration: +<q>In claiming for the Bible inspiration, we do not exclude the possibility of +other lower or more partial degrees of inspiration in other literatures. The Spirit of +God has doubtless touched other hearts and other minds ... in such a way as to give +insight into truth, besides those which could claim descent from Abraham.</q> Philo +thought the LXX translators, the Greek philosophers, and at times even himself, to be +inspired. Plato he regards as <q>most sacred</q> (ἱερωτατος), but all good men are in various +degrees inspired. Yet Philo never quotes as authoritative any but the Canonical +Books. He attributes to them an authority unique in its kind. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) In all matters of morals and religion, however, man's insight into +truth is vitiated by wrong affections, and, unless a supernatural wisdom can +guide him, he is certain to err himself, and to lead others into error. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>1 Cor. 2:14—<q>Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; +and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged</q></emph>; <emph>10—<q>But unto us God revealed them through the +Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.</q></emph> See quotation from Coleridge, in +Shairp, Culture and Religion, 114—<q>Water cannot rise higher than its source; neither +can human reasoning</q>; Emerson, Prose Works, 1:474; 2:468—<q>'Tis curious we only +believe as deep as we live</q>; Ullmann, Sinlessness of Jesus, 183, 184. For this reason we +hold to a communication of religious truth, at least at times, more direct and objective +than is granted by George Adam Smith, Com. on Isaiah, 1:372—<q>To Isaiah inspiration +was nothing more nor less than the possession of certain strong moral and religious +convictions, which he felt he owed to the communication of the Spirit of God, and +according to which he interpreted, and even dared to foretell, the history of his people +and of the world. Our study completely dispels, on the evidence of the Bible itself, +that view of inspiration and prediction so long held in the church.</q> If this is meant as +a denial of any communication of truth other than the internal and subjective, we set +over against it. <emph>Num. 12:6-8—<q>if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto +him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all my house: +with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and the form of Jehovah shall he +behold.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The theory in question, holding as it does that natural insight is +the only source of religious truth, involves a self-contradiction;—if the +theory be true, then one man is inspired to utter what a second is inspired +to pronounce false. The Vedas, the Koran and the Bible cannot be inspired +to contradict each other. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Vedas permit thieving, and the Koran teaches salvation by works; these cannot +be inspired and the Bible also. Paul cannot be inspired to write his epistles, and Swedenborg +also inspired to reject them. The Bible does not admit that pagan teachings +have the same divine endorsement with its own. Among the Spartans to steal was +<pb n='204'/><anchor id='Pg204'/> +praiseworthy; only to be caught stealing was criminal. On the religious consciousness +with regard to the personality of God, the divine goodness, the future life, the utility +of prayer, in all of which Miss Cobbe, Mr. Greg and Mr. Parker disagree with each +other, see Bruce, Apologetics, 143, 144. With Matheson we may grant that the leading +idea of inspiration is <q>the growth of the divine through the capacities of the human,</q> +while yet we deny that inspiration confines itself to this subjective enlightenment of +the human faculties, and also we exclude from the divine working all those perverse +and erroneous utterances which are the results of human sin. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) It makes moral and religious truth to be a purely subjective thing—a +matter of private opinion—having no objective reality independently +of men's opinions regarding it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On this system truth is what men <q>trow</q>; things are what men <q>think</q>—words +representing only the subjective. <q>Better the Greek ἀλήθεια = <q>the unconcealed</q> +(objective truth)</q>—Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 182. If there be no absolute truth, +Lessing's <q>search for truth</q> is the only thing left to us. But who will search, if there +is no truth to be found? Even a wise cat will not eternally chase its own tail. The +exercise within certain limits is doubtless useful, but the cat gives it up so soon as +it becomes convinced that the tail cannot be caught. Sir Richard Burton became a +Roman Catholic, a Brahmin, and a Mohammedan, successively, apparently holding +with Hamlet that <q>there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.</q> +This same scepticism as to the existence of objective truth appears in the sayings: +<q>Your religion is good for you, and mine for me</q>; <q>One man is born an Augustinian, +and another a Pelagian.</q> See Dix, Pantheism, Introd., 12. Richter: <q>It is not the +goal, but the course, that makes us happy.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) It logically involves the denial of a personal God who is truth and +reveals truth, and so makes man to be the highest intelligence in the universe. +This is to explain inspiration by denying its existence; since, if +there be no personal God, inspiration is but a figure of speech for a +purely natural fact. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>animus</foreign> of this theory is denial of the supernatural. Like the denial of miracles, +it can be maintained only upon grounds of atheism or pantheism. The view in question, +as Hutton in his Essays remarks, would permit us to say that the word of the Lord +came to Gibbon, amid the ruins of the Coliseum, saying: <q>Go, write the history of the +Decline and Fall!</q> But, replies Hutton: Such a view is pantheistic. Inspiration is +the voice of a living friend, in distinction from the voice of a dead friend, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, the influence +of his memory. The inward impulse of genius, Shakespeare's for example, is not +properly denominated inspiration. See Row, Bampton Lectures for 1877:428-474; +Rogers, Eclipse of Faith, 73 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> and 283 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Henderson, Inspiration (2nd ed.), 443-469, +481-490. The view of Martineau, Seat of Authority, 302, is substantially this. See criticism +of Martineau, by Rainy, in Critical Rev., 1:5-20. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. The Illumination Theory.</head> + +<p> +This regards inspiration as merely an intensifying and elevating of the +religious perceptions of the Christian, the same in kind, though greater in +degree, with the illumination of every believer by the Holy Spirit. It +holds, not that the Bible is, but that it contains, the word of God, and that +not the writings, but only the writers, were inspired. The illumination +given by the Holy Spirit, however, puts the inspired writer only in full +possession of his normal powers, but does not communicate objective truth +beyond his ability to discover or understand. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This theory naturally connects itself with Arminian views of mere coöperation with +God. It differs from the Intuition-theory by containing several distinctively Christian +elements: (1) the influence of a personal God; (2) an extraordinary work of the Holy +Spirit; (3) the Christological character of the Scriptures, putting into form a revelation +of which Christ is the centre (<emph>Rev. 19:10</emph>). But while it grants that the Scripture +<pb n='205'/><anchor id='Pg205'/> +writers were <emph><q>moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph> (φερόμενοι—<emph>2 Pet. 1:21</emph>), it ignores the complementary +fact that the Scripture itself is <emph><q>inspired of God</q></emph> (θεόπνευστος—<emph>2 Tim. 3:16</emph>). Luther's view +resembles this; see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 236, 237. Schleiermacher, with the +more orthodox Neander, Tholuck and Cremer, holds it; see Essays by Tholuck, in Herzog, +Encyclopädie, and in Noyes, Theological Essays; Cremer, Lexicon N.T., θεόπνευστος, +and in Herzog and Hauck, Realencyc., 9:183-203. In France, Sabatier, Philos. Religion, +90, remarks: <q>Prophetic inspiration is piety raised to the second power</q>—it +differs from the piety of common men only in intensity and energy. See also Godet, +in Revue Chrétienne, Jan. 1878. +</p> + +<p> +In England Coleridge propounded this view in his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit +(Works, 5:669)—<q>Whatever <emph>finds me</emph> bears witness that it has proceeded from a Holy +Spirit; in the Bible there is more that <emph>finds me</emph> than I have experienced in all other +books put together.</q> [Shall we then call Baxter's <q>Saints' Rest</q> inspired, while the +Books of Chronicles are not?] See also F. W. Robertson, Sermon I; Life and Letters, +letter 53, vol. 1:270; 2:143-150—<q>The <emph>other</emph> way, some twenty or thirty men in the +world's history have had special communication, miraculous and from God; in <emph>this</emph> +way, all may have it, and by devout and earnest cultivation of the mind and heart may +have it illimitably increased.</q> Frederick W. H. Myers, Catholic Thoughts on the Bible +and Theology, 10-20, emphasizes the idea that the Scriptures are, in their earlier parts, +not merely inadequate, but partially untrue, and subsequently superseded by fuller +revelations. The leading thought is that of <emph>accommodation</emph>; the record of revelation is +not necessarily infallible. Allen, Religious Progress, 44, quotes Bishop Thirlwall: <q>If +that Spirit by which every man spoke of old is a living and present Spirit, its later lessons +may well transcend its earlier</q>;—Pascal's <q>colossal man</q> is the race; the first +men represented only infancy; <emph>we</emph> are <q>the ancients</q>, and we are wiser than our fathers. +See also Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought, 473, note 50; Martineau, Studies in +Christianity: <q>One Gospel in Many Dialects.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Of American writers who favor this view, see J. F. Clarke, Orthodoxy, its Truths and +Errors, 74; Curtis, Human Element in Inspiration; Whiton, in N. Eng., Jan. 1882:63-72; +Ladd, in Andover Review, July, 1885, in What is the Bible? and in Doctrine of +Sacred Scripture, 1:759—<q>a large proportion of its writings inspired</q>; 2:178, 275, 497—<q>that +fundamental misconception which identifies the Bible and the word of God</q>; +2:488—<q>Inspiration, as the subjective condition of Biblical revelation and the predicate +of the word of God, is <emph>specifically</emph> the same illumining, quickening, elevating and purifying +work of the Holy Spirit as that which goes on in the persons of the entire believing +community.</q> Professor Ladd therefore pares down all predictive prophecy, and +regards <emph>Isaiah 53</emph>, not as directly and solely, but only as typically, Messianic. Clarke, +Christian Theology, 35-44—<q>Inspiration is exaltation, quickening of ability, stimulation +of spiritual power; it is uplifting and enlargement of capacity for perception, comprehension +and utterance; and all under the influence of a thought, a truth, or an ideal +that has taken possession of the soul.... Inspiration to write was not different in +kind from the common influence of God upon his people.... Inequality in the Scriptures +is plain.... Even if we were convinced that some book would better have been +omitted from the Canon, our confidence in the Scriptures would not thereby be shaken. +The Canon did not make Scripture, but Scripture made the Canon. The inspiration of +the Bible does not prove its excellence, but its excellence proves its inspiration. The +Spirit brought the Scriptures to help Christ's work, but not to take his place. Scripture +says with Paul: <emph><q>Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in faith ye +stand fast</q> (2 Cor. 1:24)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson: <q>The office of the Spirit in inspiration is not different from that +which he performed for Christians at the time the gospels were written.... When the +prophets say: <emph><q>Thus saith the Lord,</q></emph> they mean simply that they have divine authority for +what they utter.</q> Calvin E. Stowe, History of Books of Bible, 19—<q>It is not the +words of the Bible that were inspired. It is not the thoughts of the Bible that were +inspired. It was the men who wrote the Bible who were inspired.</q> Thayer, Changed +Attitude toward the Bible, 63—<q>It was not before the polemic spirit became rife in +the controversies which followed the Reformation that the fundamental distinction +between the word of God and the record of that word became obliterated, and the pestilent +tenet gained currency that the Bible is absolutely free from every error of every +sort.</q> Principal Cave, in Homiletical Review, Feb. 1892, admitting errors but none +serious in the Bible, proposes a mediating statement for the present controversy, +namely, that Revelation implies inerrancy, but that Inspiration does not. Whatever +God reveals must be true, but many have become inspired without being rendered +infallible. See also Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 291 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='206'/><anchor id='Pg206'/> + +<p> +With regard to this theory we remark: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) There is unquestionably an illumination of the mind of every believer +by the Holy Spirit, and we grant that there may have been instances in +which the influence of the Spirit, in inspiration, amounted only to +illumination. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Certain applications and interpretations of Old Testament Scripture, as for example, +John the Baptist's application to Jesus of Isaiah's prophecy (<emph>John 1:29—<q rend='pre'>Behold, the Lamb of +God, that taketh away</q></emph> [marg. <emph><q>beareth</q></emph>] <emph><q rend='post'>the sin of the world</q></emph>), and Peter's interpretation of David's +words (<emph>Acts 2:27—<q>thou wilt not leave my soul unto Hades, Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption</q></emph>), +may have required only the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit. There is +a sense in which we may say that the Scriptures are inspired only to those who are +themselves inspired. The Holy Spirit must show us Christ before we recognize the +work of the Spirit in Scripture. The doctrines of atonement and of justification perhaps +did not need to be newly revealed to the N. T. writers; illumination as to earlier +revelations may have sufficed. But that Christ existed before his incarnation, and +that there are personal distinctions in the Godhead, probably required revelation. +Edison says that <q>inspiration is simply perspiration.</q> Genius has been defined as +<q>unlimited power to take pains.</q> But it is more—the power to do spontaneously and +without effort what the ordinary man does by the hardest. Every great genius recognizes +that this power is due to the inflowing into him of a Spirit greater than his own—the +Spirit of divine wisdom and energy. The Scripture writers attribute their +understanding of divine things to the Holy Spirit; see next paragraph. On genius, as +due to <q>subliminal uprush,</q> see F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality, 1:70-120. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) But we deny that this was the constant method of inspiration, or +that such an influence can account for the revelation of new truth to the +prophets and apostles. The illumination of the Holy Spirit gives no new +truth, but only a vivid apprehension of the truth already revealed. Any +original communication of truth must have required a work of the Spirit +different, not in degree, but in kind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Scriptures clearly distinguish between revelation, or the communication of new +truth, and illumination, or the quickening of man's cognitive powers to perceive truth +already revealed. No increase in the power of the eye or the telescope will do more +than to bring into clear view what is already within its range. Illumination will not +lift the veil that hides what is beyond. Revelation, on the other hand, is an <q>unveiling</q>—the +raising of a curtain, or the bringing within our range of what was hidden +before. Such a special operation of God is described in <emph>2 Sam. 23:2, 3—<q>The Spirit of Jehovah +spake by me, And his word was upon my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 10:20—<q>For +it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 2:9-13—<q>Things which +eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for +them that love him. But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the +deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? +even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the +spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Clairvoyance and second sight, of which along with many cases of imposition and +exaggeration there seems to be a small residuum of proved fact, show that there may +be extraordinary operations of our natural powers. But, as in the case of miracle, the +inspiration of Scripture necessitated an exaltation of these natural powers such as only +the special influence of the Holy Spirit can explain. That the product is inexplicable +as due to mere illumination seems plain when we remember that revelation sometimes +<emph>excluded</emph> illumination as to the meaning of that which was communicated, for the prophets +are represented in <emph>1 Pet. 1:11</emph> as <emph><q>searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ +which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow +them.</q></emph> Since no degree of illumination can account for the prediction of <emph><q>things that +are to come</q></emph> (<emph>John 16:13</emph>), this theory tends to the denial of any immediate revelation in +prophecy so-called, and the denial easily extends to any immediate revelation of +doctrine. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='207'/><anchor id='Pg207'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Mere illumination could not secure the Scripture writers from +frequent and grievous error. The spiritual perception of the Christian +is always rendered to some extent imperfect and deceptive by remaining +depravity. The subjective element so predominates in this theory, that no +certainty remains even with regard to the trustworthiness of the Scriptures +as a whole. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +While we admit imperfections of detail in matters not essential to the moral and +religious teaching of Scripture, we claim that the Bible furnishes a sufficient guide to +Christ and to salvation. The theory we are considering, however, by making the +measure of holiness to be the measure of inspiration, renders even the collective testimony +of the Scripture writers an uncertain guide to truth. We point out therefore +that inspiration is not absolutely limited by the moral condition of those who are +inspired. Knowledge, in the Christian, may go beyond conduct. Balaam and Caiaphas +were not holy men, yet they were inspired (<emph>Num. 23:5; John 11:49-52</emph>). The promise of +Christ assured at least the essential trustworthiness of his witnesses (<emph>Mat. 10:7, 19, 20; John +14:26; 15:26, 27; 16:13; 17:8</emph>). This theory that inspiration is a wholly subjective communication +of truth leads to the practical rejection of important parts of Scripture, in +fact to the rejection of all Scripture that professes to convey truth beyond the power +of man to discover or to understand. Notice the progress from Thomas Arnold (Sermons, +2:185) to Matthew Arnold (Literature and Dogma, 134, 137). Notice also Swedenborg's +rejection of nearly one half the Bible (Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, +Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and the whole of the N. T. except the +Gospels and the Apocalypse), connected with the claim of divine authority for his new +revelation. <q>His interlocutors all Swedenborgize</q> (R. W. Emerson). On Swedenborg, +see Hours with the Mystics, 2:230; Moehler, Symbolism, 436-466; New Englander, +Jan. 1874:195; Baptist Review, 1883:143-157; Pond, Swedenborgianism; Ireland, The +Blot on the Brain, 1-129. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The theory is logically indefensible, as intimating that illumination +with regard to truth can be imparted without imparting truth itself, +whereas God must first furnish objective truth to be perceived before he +can illuminate the mind to perceive the meaning of that truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The theory is analogous to the views that preservation is a continued creation; +knowledge is recognition; regeneration is increase of light. In order to preservation, +something must first be created which can be preserved; in order to recognition, +something must be known which can be recognized or known again; in order to make +increase of light of any use, there must first be the power to see. In like manner, inspiration +cannot be mere illumination, because the external necessarily precedes the internal, +the objective precedes the subjective, the truth revealed precedes the apprehension +of that truth. In the case of all truth that surpasses the normal powers of man to +perceive or evolve, there must be special communication from God; revelation must +go before inspiration; inspiration alone is not revelation. It matters not whether this +communication of truth be from without or from within. As in creation, God can +work from within, yet the new result is not explicable as mere reproduction of the +past. The eye can see only as it receives and uses the external light furnished by the +sun, even though it be equally true that without the eye the light of the sun would be +nothing worth. +</p> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 17-19, says that to Schleiermacher revelation is the original +appearance of a proper religious life, which life is derived neither from external communication +nor from invention and reflection, but from a divine impartation, which +impartation can be regarded, not merely as an instructive influence upon man as an +intellectual being, but as an endowment determining his whole personal existence—an +endowment analogous to the higher conditions of poetic and heroic exaltation. +Pfleiderer himself would give the name <q>revelation</q> to <q>every original experience +in which man becomes aware of, and is seized by, supersensible truth, truth which does +not come from external impartation nor from purposed reflection, but from the unconscious +and undivided transcendental ground of the soul, and so is received as an +impartation from God through the medium of the soul's human activity.</q> Kaftan, +Dogmatik, 51 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>—<q>We must put the conception of revelation in place of inspiration. +<pb n='208'/><anchor id='Pg208'/> +Scripture is the record of divine revelation. We do not propose a new doctrine or +inspiration, in place of the old. We need only revelation, and, here and there, providence. +The testimony of the Holy Spirit is given, not to inspiration, but to revelation—the +truths that touch the human spirit and have been historically revealed.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 182—Edwards held that spiritual life in the soul is given +by God only to his favorites and dear children, while inspiration may be thrown out, +as it were, to dogs and swine—a Balaam, Saul, and Judas. The greatest privilege of +apostles and prophets was, not their inspiration, but their holiness. Better to have +grace in the heart, than to be the mother of Christ (<emph>Luke 11:27, 28</emph>). Maltbie D. Babcock, +in S. S. Times, 1901:590—<q>The man who mourns because infallibility cannot be had in +a church, or a guide, or a set of standards, does not know when he is well off. How +could God develop our minds, our power of moral judgment, if there were no <q>spirit to +be tried</q> (<emph>1 John 4:1</emph>), no necessity for discrimination, no discipline of search and challenge +and choice? To give the right answer to a problem is to put him on the side of +infallibility so far as that answer is concerned, but it is to do him an ineffable wrong +touching his real education. The blessing of life's schooling is not in knowing the right +answer in advance, but in developing power through struggle.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Why did John Henry Newman surrender to the Church of Rome? Because he +assumed that an external authority is absolutely essential to religion, and, when such +an assumption is followed, Rome is the only logical terminus. <q>Dogma was,</q> he says, +<q>the fundamental principle of my religion.</q> Modern ritualism is a return to this mediæval +notion. <q>Dogmatic Christianity,</q> says Harnack, <q>is Catholic. It needs an inerrant +Bible, and an infallible church to interpret that Bible. The dogmatic Protestant +is of the same camp with the sacramental and infallible Catholic.</q> Lyman Abbott: +<q>The new Reformation denies the infallibility of the Bible, as the Protestant Reformation +denied the infallibility of the Church. There is no infallible authority. Infallible +authority is undesirable.... God has given us something far better,—life.... The +Bible is the record of the gradual manifestation of God to man in human experience, +in moral laws and their applications, and in the life of Him who was God manifest in +the flesh.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Leighton Williams: <q>There is no inspiration apart from experience. Baptists are +not sacramental, nor creedal, but experimental Christians</q>—not Romanists, nor Protestants, +but believers in an inner light. <q>Life, as it develops, awakens into self-consciousness. +That self-consciousness becomes the most reliable witness as to the nature +of the life of which it is the development. Within the limits of its own sphere, its authority +is supreme. Prophecy is the utterance of the soul in moments of deep religious +experience. The inspiration of Scripture writers is not a peculiar thing,—it was given +that the same inspiration might be perfected in those who read their writings.</q> Christ +is the only ultimate authority, and he reveals himself in three ways, through Scripture, +the Reason, and the Church. Only Life saves, and the Way leads through the Truth to +the Life. Baptists stand nearer to the Episcopal system of life than to the Presbyterian +system of creed. Whiton, Gloria Patri, 136—<q>The mistake is in looking to the Father +above the world, rather than to the Son and the Spirit within the world, as the immediate +source of revelation.... Revelation is the unfolding of the life and thought of +God within the world. One should not be troubled by finding errors in the Scriptures, +any more than by finding imperfections in any physical work of God, as in the human +eye.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. The Dictation-theory.</head> + +<p> +This theory holds that inspiration consisted in such a possession of the +minds and bodies of the Scripture writers by the Holy Spirit, that they +became passive instruments or amanuenses—pens, not penmen, of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This theory naturally connects itself with that view of miracles which regards them +as suspensions or violations of natural law. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 1:624 (transl. 2:186-189), +calls it a <q>docetic view of inspiration. It holds to the abolition of second +causes, and to the perfect passivity of the human instrument; denies any inspiration +of persons, and maintains inspiration of writings only. This exaggeration of the divine +element led to the hypothesis of a multiform divine sense in Scripture, and, in assigning +the spiritual meaning, a rationalizing spirit led the way.</q> Representatives of this +view are Quenstedt, Theol. Didact., 1:76—<q>The Holy Ghost inspired his amanuenses +with those expressions which they would have employed, had they been left to themselves</q>; +<pb n='209'/><anchor id='Pg209'/> +Hooker, Works, 2:383—<q>They neither spake nor wrote any word of their +own, but uttered syllable by syllable as the Spirit put it into their mouths</q>; Gaussen, +Theopneusty, 61—<q>The Bible is not a book which God charged men already enlightened +to make under his protection; it is a book which God dictated to them</q>; Cunningham, +Theol. Lectures, 349—<q>The verbal inspiration of the Scriptures [which he +advocates] implies in general that the words of Scripture were suggested or dictated +by the Holy Spirit, as well as the substance of the matter, and this, not only in some +portion of the Scriptures, but through the whole.</q> This reminds us of the old theory +that God created fossils in the rocks, as they would be had ancient seas existed. +</p> + +<p> +Sanday, Bamp. Lect. on Inspiration, 74, quotes Philo as saying: <q>A prophet gives +forth nothing at all of his own, but acts as interpreter at the prompting of another in +all his utterances, and as long as he is under inspiration he is in ignorance, his reason +departing from its place and yielding up the citadel of the soul, when the divine Spirit +enters into it and dwells in it and strikes at the mechanism of the voice, sounding +through it to the clear declaration of that which he prophesieth</q>; in <emph>Gen. 15:12—<q>About +the setting of the sun a trance came upon Abram</q></emph>—the sun is the light of human reason which sets +and gives place to the Spirit of God. Sanday, 78, says also: <q>Josephus holds that even +historical narratives, such as those at the beginning of the Pentateuch which were not +written down by contemporary prophets, were obtained by direct inspiration from +God. The Jews from their birth regard their Scripture as <q>the decrees of God,</q> which +they strictly observe, and for which if need be they are ready to die.</q> The Rabbis said +that <q>Moses did not write one word out of his own knowledge.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Reformers held to a much freer view than this. Luther said: <q>What does not +carry Christ with it, is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul taught it. If +our adversaries fall back on the Scripture against Christ, we fall back on Christ against +the Scripture.</q> Luther refused canonical authority to books not actually written by +apostles or composed, like Mark and Luke, under their direction. So he rejected from +the rank of canonical authority Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter and Revelation. Even +Calvin doubted the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, excluded the book of Revelation +from the Scripture on which he wrote Commentaries, and also thus ignored the second +and third epistles of John; see Prof. R. E. Thompson, in S. S. Times, Dec. 3, 1898:803, +804. The dictation-theory is post-Reformation. H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and +Inspiration, 85—<q>After the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic polemic became +sharper. It became the endeavor of that party to show the necessity of tradition and +the untrustworthiness of Scripture alone. This led the Protestants to defend the Bible +more tenaciously than before.</q> The Swiss Formula of Consensus in 1675 not only called +the Scriptures <q>the very word of God,</q> but declared the Hebrew vowel-points to be +inspired, and some theologians traced them back to Adam. John Owen held to the +inspiration of the vowel-points; see Horton, Inspiration and Bible, 8. Of the age which +produced the Protestant dogmatic theology, Charles Beard, in the Hibbert Lectures +for 1883, says: <q>I know no epoch of Christianity to which I could more confidently +point in illustration of the fact that where there is most theology, there is often least +religion.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Of this view we may remark: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We grant that there are instances when God's communications were +uttered in an audible voice and took a definite form of words, and that this +was sometimes accompanied with the command to commit the words to +writing. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For examples, see <emph>Ex. 3:4—<q>God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses</q></emph>; <emph>20:22—<q>Ye +yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Heb. 12:19—<q>the voice of words; +which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them</q></emph>; <emph>Numbers 7:89—<q>And when +Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, then he heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the +mercy-seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim: and he spake unto him</q></emph>; <emph>8:1—<q>And +Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,</q></emph> etc.; <emph>Dan. 4:31—<q>While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a +voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from thee</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 9:5—<q>And +he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 19:9—<q>And he +saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb</q></emph>; <emph>21:5—<q>And he that +sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1:10, 11—<q>and I heard behind me a great voice, as +of a trumpet saying, What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches.</q></emph> So the voice from +heaven at the baptism, and at the transfiguration, of Jesus (<emph>Mat. 3:17</emph>, and <emph>17:5</emph>; see +Broadus, Amer. Com., on these passages). +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='210'/><anchor id='Pg210'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The theory in question, however, rests upon a partial induction of +Scripture facts,—unwarrantably assuming that such occasional instances +of direct dictation reveal the invariable method of God's communications of +truth to the writers of the Bible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Scripture nowhere declares that this immediate communication of the words was universal. +On <emph>1 Cor. 2:13—οὐκ ἐν διδακτοίς ανθρωπίνης σοφίας, λόγοις, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν διδακτοîς πνεύματος</emph>, +the text usually cited as proof of invariable dictation—Meyer says: <q>There is no dictation +here; διδακτοîς excludes everything mechanical.</q> Henderson, Inspiration (2nd +ed.), 333, 349—<q>As human wisdom did not dictate word for word, so the Spirit did not.</q> +Paul claims for Scripture simply a general style of plainness which is due to the influence +of the Spirit. Manly: <q>Dictation to an amanuensis is not <emph>teaching</emph>.</q> Our Revised +Version properly translates the remainder of the verse, <emph>1 Cor. 2:13—<q>combining spiritual things +with spiritual words.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It cannot account for the manifestly human element in the Scriptures. +There are peculiarities of style which distinguish the productions of +each writer from those of every other, and there are variations in accounts +of the same transaction which are inconsistent with the theory of a solely +divine authorship. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice Paul's anacoloutha and his bursts of grief and indignation (<emph>Rom. 5:12 </emph><hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>, <emph>2 Cor. +11:1</emph> <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>), and his ignorance of the precise number whom he had baptized (<emph>1 Cor. 1:16</emph>). +One beggar or two (<emph>Mat. 20:30</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Luke 18:35</emph>); <emph><q>about five and twenty or thirty furlongs</q> (John 6:19)</emph>; +<emph><q>shed for many</q></emph> (<emph>Mat. 26:28</emph> has περί, <emph>Mark 14:24</emph> and <emph>Luke 22:20</emph> have ὑπέρ). Dictation of words +which were immediately to be lost by imperfect transcription? Clarke, Christian +Theology, 33-37—<q>We are under no obligation to maintain the complete inerrancy of +the Scriptures. In them we have the freedom of life, rather than extraordinary precision +of statement or accuracy of detail. We have become Christians in spite of differences +between the evangelists. The Scriptures are various, progressive, free. +There is no authority in Scripture for applying the word 'inspired' to our present +Bible as a whole, and theology is not bound to employ this word in defining the Scriptures. +Christianity is founded in history, and will stand whether the Scriptures are +inspired or not. If special inspiration were wholly disproved, Christ would still be the +Savior of the world. But the divine element in the Scriptures will never be disproved.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) It is inconsistent with a wise economy of means, to suppose that +the Scripture writers should have had dictated to them what they knew +already, or what they could inform themselves of by the use of their natural +powers. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Why employ eye-witnesses at all? Why not dictate the gospels to Gentiles living a +thousand years before? God respects the instruments he has called into being, and he +uses them according to their constitutional gifts. George Eliot represents Stradivarius +as saying:—<q>If my hand slacked, I should rob God—since he is fullest good—Leaving +a blank instead of violins. God cannot make Antonio Stradivari's violins, +Without Antonio.</q> <emph>Mark 11:3—<q>The Lord hath need of him,</q></emph> may apply to man as well as beast. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) It contradicts what we know of the law of God's working in the soul. +The higher and nobler God's communications, the more fully is man in +possession and use of his own faculties. We cannot suppose that this highest +work of man under the influence of the Spirit was purely mechanical. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Joseph receives communication by vision (<emph>Mat. 1:20</emph>); Mary, by words of an angel +spoken in her waking moments (<emph>Luke 1:28</emph>). The more advanced the recipient, the more +conscious the communication. These four theories might almost be called the Pelagian, +the Arminian, the Docetic, and the Dynamical. Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 41, 42, 87—<q>In +the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Father says at the baptism to Jesus: <q>My Son, in +all the prophets I was waiting for thee, that thou mightest come, and that I might rest +in thee. For thou art my Rest.</q> Inspiration becomes more and more internal, until in +Christ it is continuous and complete. Upon the opposite Docetic view, the most perfect +<pb n='211'/><anchor id='Pg211'/> +inspiration should have been that of Balaam's ass.</q> Semler represents the Pelagian +or Ebionitic view, as Quenstedt represents this Docetic view. Semler localizes and +temporalizes the contents of Scripture. Yet, though he carried this to the extreme of +excluding any divine authorship, he did good service in leading the way to the historical +study of the Bible. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. The Dynamical Theory.</head> + +<p> +The true view holds, in opposition to the first of these theories, that +inspiration is not simply a natural but also a supernatural fact, and that it +is the immediate work of a personal God in the soul of man. +</p> + +<p> +It holds, in opposition to the second, that inspiration belongs, not only +to the men who wrote the Scriptures, but to the Scriptures which they +wrote, so that these Scriptures, when taken together, constitute a trustworthy +and sufficient record of divine revelation. +</p> + +<p> +It holds, in opposition to the third theory, that the Scriptures contain a +human as well as a divine element, so that while they present a body of +divinely revealed truth, this truth is shaped in human moulds and adapted +to ordinary human intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +In short, inspiration is characteristically neither natural, partial, nor +mechanical, but supernatural, plenary, and dynamical. Further explanations +will be grouped under the head of The Union of the Divine and +Human Elements in Inspiration, in the section which immediately follows. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +If the small circle be taken as symbol of the human element in inspiration, and the +large circle as symbol of the divine, then the Intuition-theory would be represented by +the small circle alone; the Dictation-theory by the large circle alone; the Illumination-theory +by the small circle external to the large, and touching it at only a single point; +the Dynamical-theory by two concentric circles, the small included in the large. Even +when inspiration is but the exaltation and intensification of man's natural powers, +it must be considered the work of God as well as of man. God can work from within +as well as from without. As creation and regeneration are works of the immanent +rather than of the transcendent God, so inspiration is in general a work within man's +soul, rather than a communication to him from without. Prophecy may be natural to +perfect humanity. Revelation is an unveiling, and the Röntgen rays enable us to see +through a veil. But the insight of the Scripture writers into truth so far beyond their +mental and moral powers is inexplicable except by a supernatural influence upon their +minds; in other words, except as they were lifted up into the divine Reason and +endowed with the wisdom of God. +</p> + +<p> +Although we propose this Dynamical-theory as one which best explains the Scripture +facts, we do not regard this or any other theory as of essential importance. No theory +of inspiration is necessary to Christian faith. Revelation precedes inspiration. There +was religion before the Old Testament, and an oral gospel before the New Testament. +God might reveal without recording; might permit record without inspiration; might +inspire without vouching for anything more than religious teaching and for the history, +only so far as was necessary to that religious teaching. Whatever theory of +inspiration we frame, should be the result of a strict induction of the Scripture facts, +and not an a priori scheme to which Scripture must be conformed. The fault of many +past discussions of the subject is the assumption that God must adopt some particular +method of inspiration, or secure an absolute perfection of detail in matters not essential +to the religious teaching of Scripture. Perhaps the best theory of inspiration is to +have no theory. +</p> + +<p> +Warfield and Hodge, Inspiration, 8—<q>Very many religious and historical truths +must be established before we come to the question of inspiration, as for instance the +being and moral government of God, the fallen condition of man, the fact of a redemptive +scheme, the general historical truth of the Scriptures, and the validity and authority +of the revelation of God's will which they contain, i. e., the general truth of +Christianity and of its doctrines. Hence it follows that while the inspiration of the +Scriptures is true, and being true is a principle fundamental to the adequate interpretation +of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in the first instance, a principle fundamental +<pb n='212'/><anchor id='Pg212'/> +to the truth of the Christian religion.</q> Warfield, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., April, 1893:208—<q>We +do not found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of inspiration.... +Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its +essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us</q>—in the gospels and in the living +church. F. L. Patton, Inspiration, 22—<q>I must take exception to the disposition of +some to stake the fortunes of Christianity on the doctrine of inspiration. Not that I +yield to any one in profound conviction of the truth and importance of the doctrine. +But it is proper for us to bear in mind the immense argumentative advantage which +Christianity has, aside altogether from the inspiration of the documents on which it +rests.</q> So argue also Sanday, Oracles of God, and Dale, The Living Christ. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. The Union of the Divine and Human Elements in Inspiration.</head> + +<p> +1. The Scriptures are the production equally of God and of man, and +are therefore never to be regarded as merely human or merely divine. +</p> + +<p> +The mystery of inspiration consists in neither of these terms separately, +but in the union of the two. Of this, however, there are analogies in the +interpenetration of human powers by the divine efficiency in regeneration +and sanctification, and in the union of the divine and human natures in the +person of Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +According to <q>Dalton's law,</q> each gas is as a vacuum to every other: <q>Gases are +mutually passive, and pass into each other as into vacua.</q> Each interpenetrates the +other. But this does not furnish a perfect illustration of our subject. The atom of +oxygen and the atom of nitrogen, in common air, remain side by side but they do not +unite. In inspiration the human and the divine elements do unite. The Lutheran +maxim, <q>Mens humana capax divinæ,</q> is one of the most important principles of a true +theology. <q>The Lutherans think of humanity as a thing made by God for himself and +to receive himself. The Reformed think of the Deity as ever preserving himself from +any confusion with the creature. They fear pantheism and idolatry</q> (Bp. of Salisbury, +quoted in Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge, xx). +</p> + +<p> +Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 66—<q>That initial mystery, the relation in our consciousness +between the individual and the universal element, between the finite and the +infinite, between God and man,—how can we comprehend their coëxistence and their +union, and yet how can we doubt it? Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has +not broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of those profound and +obscure waters on which floats our consciousness? Who has not felt within himself a +veiled presence, and a force much greater than his own? What worker in a lofty +cause has not perceived within his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of +veneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal Power? <q>In Deo vivimus, +movemur, et sumus.</q>... This mystery cannot be dissipated, for without it religion +itself would no longer exist.</q> Quackenbos, in Harper's Magazine, July, 1900:264, says +that <q>hypnotic suggestion is but inspiration.</q> The analogy of human influence thus +communicated may at least help us to some understanding of the divine. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. This union of the divine and human agencies in inspiration is not to +be conceived of as one of external impartation and reception. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, those whom God raised up and providentially qualified +to do this work, spoke and wrote the words of God, when inspired, not as +from without, but as from within, and that not passively, but in the most +conscious possession and the most exalted exercise of their own powers of +intellect, emotion, and will. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Holy Spirit does not dwell in man as water in a vessel. We may rather illustrate +the experience of the Scripture writers by the experience of the preacher who under the +influence of God's Spirit is carried beyond himself, and is conscious of a clearer apprehension +of truth and of a greater ability to utter it than belong to his unaided nature, +yet knows himself to be no passive vehicle of a divine communication, but to be as +never before in possession and exercise of his own powers. The inspiration of the +Scripture writers, however, goes far beyond the illumination granted to the preacher, +in that it qualifies them to put the truth, without error, into permanent and written +<pb n='213'/><anchor id='Pg213'/> +form. This inspiration, moreover, is more than providential preparation. Like miracles, +inspiration may use man's natural powers, but man's natural powers do not +explain it. Moses, David, Paul, and John were providentially endowed and educated +for their work of writing Scripture, but this endowment and education were not +inspiration itself, but only the preparation for it. +</p> + +<p> +Beyschlag: <q>With John, remembrance and exposition had become inseparable.</q> E. +G. Robinson; <q>Novelists do not <emph>create</emph> characters,—they reproduce with modifications +material presented to their memories. So the apostles reproduced their impressions +of Christ.</q> Hutton, Essays, 2:231—<q>The Psalmists vacillate between the first person +and the third, when they deliver the purposes of God. As they warm with their spiritual +inspiration, they lose themselves in the person of Him who inspires them, and then +they are again recalled to themselves.</q> Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:380—<q>Revelation +is not resolved into a mere human process because we are able to distinguish the natural +agencies through which it was communicated</q>; 2:102—<q>You seem to me to +transfer too much to these ancient prophets and writers and chiefs our modern notions +of <emph>divine origin</emph>.... Our notion, or rather, the modern Puritanical notion of divine +origin, is of a preternatural force or voice, putting aside secondary agencies, and separated +from those agencies by an impassable gulf. The ancient, Oriental, Biblical notion +was of a supreme Will acting through those agencies, or rather, being inseparable from +them. <emph>Our</emph> notions of inspiration and divine communications insist on absolute perfection +of fact, morals, doctrine. The Biblical notion was that inspiration was compatible +with weakness, infirmity, contradiction.</q> Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, 182—<q>In inspiration +the thoughts, feelings, purposes are organized into another One than the self in +which they were themselves born. That other One is <emph>in themselves</emph>. They enter into +communication with Him. Yet this may be supernatural, even though natural psychological +means are used. Inspiration which is external is not inspiration at all.</q> This +last sentence, however, seems to us a needless exaggeration of the true principle. +Though God originally inspires from within, he may also communicate truth from +without. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +3. Inspiration, therefore, did not remove, but rather pressed into its +own service, all the personal peculiarities of the writers, together with their +defects of culture and literary style. +</p> + +<p> +Every imperfection not inconsistent with truth in a human composition +may exist in inspired Scripture. The Bible is God's word, in the sense +that it presents to us divine truth in human forms, and is a revelation not +for a select class but for the common mind. Rightly understood, this very +humanity of the Bible is a proof of its divinity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Locke: <q>When God made the prophet, he did not unmake the man.</q> Prof. Day: +<q>The bush in which God appeared to Moses remained a bush, while yet burning with +the brightness of God and uttering forth the majesty of the mind of God.</q> The paragraphs +of the Koran are called <foreign lang='ar' rend='italic'>ayat</foreign>, or <q>sign,</q> from their supposed supernatural +elegance. But elegant literary productions do not touch the heart. The Bible is not +merely the word of God; it is also the word made flesh. The Holy Spirit hides himself, +that he may show forth Christ (<emph>John 3:8</emph>); he is known only by his effects—a pattern +for preachers, who are ministers of the Spirit (<emph>2 Cor. 3:6</emph>). See Conant on Genesis, 65. +</p> + +<p> +The Moslem declares that every word of the Koran came by the agency of Gabriel +from the seventh heaven, and that its very pronunciation is inspired. Better the doctrine +of Martineau, Seat of Authority, 289—<q>Though the pattern be divine, the web +that bears it must still be human.</q> Jackson, James Martineau, 255—<q>Paul's metaphor +of the <emph><q>treasure in earthen vessels</q> (2 Cor. 4:7)</emph> you cannot allow to give you guidance; you +want, not the treasure only, but the casket too, to come from above, and be of the +crystal of the sky. You want the record to be divine, not only in its spirit, but also in +its letter.</q> Charles Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:157—<q>When God ordains praise out of the +mouths of babes, they must speak as babes, or the whole power and beauty of the +tribute will be lost.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 16, 25—<q>The πνεῦμα of a dead wind is never +changed, as the Rabbis of old thought, into the πνεῦμα of a living spirit. The raven +that fed Elijah was nothing more than a bird. Nor does man, when supernaturally +influenced, cease to be a man. An inspired man is not God, nor a divinely manipulated +<pb n='214'/><anchor id='Pg214'/> +automaton</q>; <q>In Scripture there may be as much imperfection as, in the parts of any +organism, would be consistent with the perfect adaptation of that organism to its destined +end. Scripture then, taken together, is a statement of moral and religious truth +sufficient for men's salvation, or an infallible and sufficient rule of <emph>faith and practice</emph>.</q> +J. S. Wrightnour: <q>Inspire means to breathe in, as a flute-player breathes into his +instrument. As different flutes may have their own shapes, peculiarities, and what +might seem like defects, so here; yet all are breathed into by one Spirit. The same +Spirit who inspired them selected those instruments which were best for his purpose, +as the Savior selected his apostles. In these writings therefore is given us, in the precise +way that is best for us, the spiritual instruction and food that we need. Food for the +body is not always given in the most concentrated form, but in the form that is best +adapted for digestion. So God gives gold, not in coin ready stamped, but in the quartz +of the mine whence it has to be dug and smelted.</q> Remains of Arthur H. Hallam, in +John Brown's Rab and his Friends, 274—<q>I see that the Bible fits in to every fold of the +human heart. I am a man, and I believe it is God's book, because it is man's book.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. In inspiration God may use all right and normal methods of literary +composition. +</p> + +<p> +As we recognize in literature the proper function of history, poetry, and +fiction; of prophecy, parable, and drama; of personification and proverb; +of allegory and dogmatic instruction; and even of myth and legend; we +cannot deny the possibility that God may use any one of these methods of +communicating truth, leaving it to us to determine in any single case which +of these methods he has adopted. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In inspiration, as in regeneration and sanctification, God works <emph><q>in divers manners</q> (Heb. +1:1)</emph>. The Scriptures, like the books of secular literature, must be interpreted in the +light of their purpose. Poetry must not be treated as prose, and parable must not be +made to <q>go on all fours,</q> when it was meant to walk erect and to tell one simple +story. Drama is not history, nor is personification to be regarded as biography. There +is a rhetorical overstatement which is intended only as a vivid emphasizing of important +truth. Allegory is a popular mode of illustration. Even myth and legend may +convey great lessons not otherwise apprehensible to infantile or untrained minds. A +literary sense is needed in our judgments of Scripture, and much hostile criticism is +lacking in this literary sense. +</p> + +<p> +Denney, Studies in Theology, 218—<q>There is a stage in which the whole contents of +the mind, as yet incapable of science or history, may be called mythological. And what +criticism shows us, in its treatment of the early chapters of Genesis, is that God does +not disdain to speak to the mind, nor through it, even when it is at this lowly stage. +Even the myth, in which the beginnings of human life, lying beyond human research, +are represented to itself by the child-mind of the race, may be made the medium of +revelation.... But that does not make the first chapter of Genesis science, nor the +third chapter history. And what is of authority in these chapters is not the quasi-scientific +or quasi-historical form, but the message, which through them comes to the +heart, of God's creative wisdom and power.</q> Gore, in Lux Mundi, 356—<q>The various +sorts of mental or literary activity develop in their different lines out of an earlier +condition in which they lie fused and undifferentiated. This we can vaguely call the +mythical stage of mental evolution. A myth is not a falsehood; it is a product of +mental activity, as instructive and rich as any later product, but its characteristic is +that it is not yet distinguished into history and poetry and philosophy.</q> So Grote calls +the Greek myths the whole intellectual stock of the age to which they belonged—the +common root of all the history, poetry, philosophy, theology, which afterwards +diverged and proceeded from it. So the early part of Genesis may be of the nature of +myth in which we cannot distinguish the historical germ, though we do not deny that +it exists. Robert Browning's Clive and Andrea del Sarto are essentially correct representations +of historical characters, though the details in each poem are imaginary. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +5. The inspiring Spirit has given the Scriptures to the world by a process +of gradual evolution. +</p> + +<p> +As in communicating the truths of natural science, God has communicated +the truths of religion by successive steps, germinally at first, more +<pb n='215'/><anchor id='Pg215'/> +fully as men have been able to comprehend them. The education of the +race is analogous to the education of the child. First came pictures, +object-lessons, external rites, predictions; then the key to these in Christ, +and then didactic exposition in the Epistles. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There have been <emph><q>divers portions,</q></emph> as well as <emph><q>divers manners</q> (Heb. 1:1)</emph>. The early prophecies +like that of <emph>Gen. 3:15</emph>—the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head—were +but faint glimmerings of the dawn. Men had to be raised up who were capable of +receiving and transmitting the divine communications. Moses, David, Isaiah mark +successive advances in recipiency and transparency to the heavenly light. Inspiration +has employed men of various degrees of ability, culture and religious insight. As all +the truths of the calculus lie germinally in the simplest mathematical axiom, so all the +truths of salvation may be wrapped up in the statement that God is holiness and love. +But not every scholar can evolve the calculus from the axiom. The teacher may dictate +propositions which the pupil does not understand: he may demonstrate in such a +way that the pupil participates in the process; or, best of all, he may incite the pupil +to work out the demonstration for himself. God seems to have used all these methods. +But while there are instances of dictation and illumination, and inspiration sometimes +includes these, the general method seems to have been such a divine quickening of +man's powers that he discovers and expresses the truth for himself. +</p> + +<p> +A. J. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 339—<q>Inspiration is that, seen from its divine +side, which we call discovery when seen from the human side.... Every addition to +knowledge, whether in the individual or the community, whether scientific, ethical or +theological, is due to a coöperation between the human soul which assimilates and the +divine power which inspires. Neither acts, or could act, in independent isolation. For +<q>unassisted reason</q> is a fiction, and pure receptivity it is impossible to conceive. Even +the emptiest vessel must limit the quantity and determine the configuration of any +liquid with which it may be filled.... Inspiration is limited to no age, to no country, +to no people.</q> The early Semites had it, and the great Oriental reformers. There can +be no gathering of grapes from thorns, or of figs from thistles. Whatever of true or +of good is found in human history has come from God. On the Progressiveness of +Revelation, see Orr, Problem of the O. T., 431-478. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +6. Inspiration did not guarantee inerrancy in things not essential to the +main purpose of Scripture. +</p> + +<p> +Inspiration went no further than to secure a trustworthy transmission +by the sacred writers of the truth they were commissioned to deliver. It +was not omniscience. It was a bestowal of various kinds and degrees of +knowledge and aid, according to need; sometimes suggesting new truth, +sometimes presiding over the collection of preëxisting material and guarding +from essential error in the final elaboration. As inspiration was not +omniscience, so it was not complete sanctification. It involved neither +personal infallibility, nor entire freedom from sin. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God can use imperfect means. As the imperfection of the eye does not disprove its +divine authorship, and as God reveals himself in nature and history in spite of their +shortcomings, so inspiration can accomplish its purpose through both writers and +writings in some respects imperfect. God is, in the Bible as he was in Hebrew history, +leading his people onward to Christ, but only by a progressive unfolding of the truth. +The Scripture writers were not perfect men. Paul at Antioch resisted Peter, <emph><q>because he +stood condemned</q> (Gal 2:11)</emph>. But Peter differed from Paul, not in public utterances, nor in +written words, but in following his own teachings (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Acts 15:6-11</emph>); <hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> Norman Fox, +in Bap. Rev., 1885:469-482. Personal defects do not invalidate an ambassador, though +they may hinder the reception of his message. So with the apostles' ignorance of the +time of Christ's second coming. It was only gradually that they came to understand +Christian doctrines; they did not teach the truth all at once; their final utterances supplemented +and completed the earlier; and all together furnished only that measure of +knowledge which God saw needful for the moral and religious teaching of mankind. +Many things are yet unrevealed, and many things which inspired men uttered, they +did not, when they uttered them, fully understand. +</p> + +<pb n='216'/><anchor id='Pg216'/> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 53, 54—<q>The word is divine-human in the sense that it has for +its contents divine truth in human, historical, and individually conditioned form. +The Holy Scripture contains the word of God in a way plain, and entirely sufficient to +beget saving faith.</q> Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 87—<q>Inspiration is not a miraculous +and therefore incredible thing, but normal and in accordance with the natural relations +of the infinite and finite spirit, a divine inflowing of <emph>mental</emph> light precisely analogous to +that <emph>moral</emph> influence which divines call grace. As every devout and obedient soul may +expect to share in divine grace, so the devout and obedient souls of all the ages have +shared, as Parker taught, in divine inspiration. And, as the reception of grace even in +large measure does not render us <emph>impeccable</emph>, so neither does the reception of inspiration +render us <emph>infallible</emph>.</q> We may concede to Miss Cobbe that inspiration consists +with imperfection, while yet we grant to the Scripture writers an authority higher than +our own. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +7. Inspiration did not always, or even generally, involve a direct communication +to the Scripture writers of the words they wrote. +</p> + +<p> +Thought is possible without words, and in the order of nature precedes +words. The Scripture writers appear to have been so influenced by the +Holy Spirit that they perceived and felt even the new truths they were to +publish, as discoveries of their own minds, and were left to the action of +their own minds in the expression of these truths, with the single exception +that they were supernaturally held back from the selection of wrong words, +and when needful were provided with right ones. Inspiration is therefore +not verbal, while yet we claim that no form of words which taken in its +connections would teach essential error has been admitted into Scripture. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Before expression there must be something to be expressed. Thought is possible +without language. The concept may exist without words. See experiences of deaf-mutes, +in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1881:104-128. The prompter interrupts only when the +speaker's memory fails. The writing-master guides the pupil's hand only when it would +otherwise go wrong. The father suffers the child to walk alone, except when it is in +danger of stumbling. If knowledge be rendered certain, it is as good as direct revelation. +But whenever the mere communication of ideas or the direction to proper +material would not suffice to secure a correct utterance, the sacred writers were guided +in the very selection of their words. Minute criticism proves more and more conclusively +the suitableness of the verbal dress to the thoughts expressed; all Biblical +exegesis is based, indeed, upon the assumption that divine wisdom has made the outward +form a trustworthy vehicle of the inward substance of revelation. See Henderson, +Inspiration (2nd ed.), 102, 114; Bib. Sac, 1872:428, 640; William James, Psychology, +1:266 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +Watts, New Apologetic, 40, 111, holds to a verbal inspiration: <q>The bottles are not the +wine, but if the bottles perish the wine is sure to be spilled</q>; the inspiring Spirit certainly +gave language to Peter and others at Pentecost, for the apostles spoke with +other tongues; holy men of old not only thought, but <emph><q>spake from God, being moved by the Holy +Spirit</q> (2 Pet. 1:21)</emph>. So Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 171—<q>Why the minute study of +the <emph>words</emph> of Scripture, carried on by all expositors, their search after the precise shade +of verbal significance, their attention to the minutest details of language, and to all +the delicate coloring of mood and tense and accent?</q> Liberal scholars, Dr. Gordon +thinks, thus affirm the very doctrine which they deny. Rothe, Dogmatics, 238, speaks +of <q>a language of the Holy Ghost.</q> Oetinger: <q>It is the style of the heavenly court.</q> +But Broadus, an almost equally conservative scholar, in his Com. on <emph>Mat. 3:17</emph>, says that +the difference between <emph><q>This is my beloved Son,</q></emph> and <emph>Luke 3:22—<q>Thou art my beloved Son,</q></emph> should +make us cautious in theorizing about verbal inspiration, and he intimates that in some +cases that hypothesis is unwarranted. The theory of verbal inspiration is refuted by +the two facts: 1. that the N. T. quotations from the O. T., in 99 cases, differ both from +the Hebrew and from the LXX; 2. that Jesus' own words are reported with variations +by the different evangelists; see Marcus Dods, The Bible, its Origin and Nature, +chapter on Inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +Helen Keller told Phillips Brooks that she had always known that there was a God, +but she had not known his name. Dr. Z. F. Westervelt, of the Deaf Mute Institute, +had under his charge four children of different mothers. All of these children were +<pb n='217'/><anchor id='Pg217'/> +dumb, though there was no defect of hearing and the organs of speech were perfect. +But their mothers had never loved them and had never talked to them in the loving +way that provoked imitation. The children heard scolding and harshness, but this did +not attract. So the older members of the church in private and in the meetings for +prayer should teach the younger to talk. But harsh and contentious talk will not +accomplish the result,—it must be the talk of Christian love. William D. Whitney, in +his review of Max Müller's Science of Language, 26-31, combats the view of Müller that +thought and language are identical. Major Bliss Taylor's reply to Santa Anna: <q>General +Taylor never surrenders!</q> was a substantially correct, though a diplomatic and +euphemistic, version of the General's actual profane words. Each Scripture writer +uttered old truth in the new forms with which his own experience had clothed it. +David reached his greatness by leaving off the mere repetition of Moses, and by speaking +out of his own heart. Paul reached his greatness by giving up the mere teaching +of what he had been taught, and by telling what God's plan of mercy was to all. +Augustine: <q>Scriptura est sensus Scripturæ</q>—<q>Scripture <emph>is</emph> what Scripture <emph>means</emph>.</q> +Among the theological writers who admit the errancy of Scripture writers as to some +matters unessential to their moral and spiritual teaching, are Luther, Calvin, Cocceius, +Tholuck, Neander, Lange, Stier, Van Oosterzee, John Howe, Richard Baxter, Conybeare, +Alford, Mead. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +8. Yet, notwithstanding the ever-present human element, the all-pervading +inspiration of the Scriptures constitutes these various writings an +organic whole. +</p> + +<p> +Since the Bible is in all its parts the work of God, each part is to be +judged, not by itself alone, but in its connection with every other part. +The Scriptures are not to be interpreted as so many merely human productions +by different authors, but as also the work of one divine mind. Seemingly +trivial things are to be explained from their connection with the whole. +One history is to be built up from the several accounts of the life of Christ. +One doctrine must supplement another. The Old Testament is part of a +progressive system, whose culmination and key are to be found in the New. +The central subject and thought which binds all parts of the Bible together, +and in the light of which they are to be interpreted, is the person and work +of Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Bible says: <emph><q>There is no God</q> (Ps. 14:1)</emph>; but then, this is to be taken with the context: +<emph><q>The fool hath said in his heart.</q></emph> Satan's <emph><q>it is written,</q> (Mat. 4:6)</emph> is supplemented by +Christ's <emph><q>It is written again</q> (Mat. 4:7)</emph>. Trivialities are like the hair and nails of the body—they +have their place as parts of a complete and organic whole; see Ebrard, Dogmatik, +1:40. The verse which mentions Paul's cloak at Troas (2 Tim. 4:13) is (1) a sign of +genuineness—a forger would not invent it; (2) an evidence of temporal need endured +for the gospel; (3) an indication of the limits of inspiration,—even Paul must have +books and parchments. <emph>Col. 2:21—<q>Handle not, nor taste, nor touch</q></emph>—is to be interpreted by the +context in <emph>verse 20—<q>why ... do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?</q></emph> and by <emph>verse 22—<q>after the +precepts and doctrines of men.</q></emph> Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:164—<q>The difference between John's +gospel and the book of Chronicles is like that between man's brain and the hair of his +head; nevertheless the life of the body is as truly in the hair as in the brain.</q> Like +railway coupons, Scripture texts are <q>Not good if detached.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Crooker, The New Bible and its New Uses, 137-144, utterly denies the unity of the +Bible. Prof. A. B. Davidson of Edinburgh says that <q>A theology of the O. T. is really +an impossibility, because the O. T. is not a homogeneous whole.</q> These denials proceed +from an insufficient recognition of the principle of evolution in O. T. history and +doctrine. Doctrines in early Scripture are like rivers at their source; they are not +yet fully expanded; many affluents are yet to come. See Bp. Bull's Sermon, in Works, +xv:183; and Bruce, Apologetics, 323—<q>The literature of the early stages of revelation +must share the defects of the revelation which it records and interprets.... The +final revelation enables us to see the defects of the earlier.... We should find Christ +in the O. T. as we find the butterfly in the caterpillar, and man the crown of the universe +in the fiery cloud.</q> Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 224—Every part is to be modified +<pb n='218'/><anchor id='Pg218'/> +by every other part. No verse is true <emph>out of</emph> the Book, but the whole Book taken +together is true. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 350—<q>To recognize the inspiration of the +Scriptures is to put ourselves to school in every part of them.</q> Robert Browning, Ring +and Book, 175 (Pope, 228)—<q>Truth nowhere lies, yet everywhere, in these; Not absolutely +in a portion, yet Evolvable from the whole; evolved at last Painfully, held tenaciously +by me.</q> On the Organic Unity of the O. T., see Orr, Problem of the O. T., 27-51. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +9. When the unity of the Scripture is fully recognized, the Bible, in +spite of imperfections in matters non-essential to its religious purpose, furnishes +a safe and sufficient guide to truth and to salvation. +</p> + +<p> +The recognition of the Holy Spirit's agency makes it rational and natural +to believe in the organic unity of Scripture. When the earlier parts are +taken in connection with the later, and when each part is interpreted by +the whole, most of the difficulties connected with inspiration disappear. +Taken together, with Christ as its culmination and explanation, the Bible +furnishes the Christian rule of faith and practice. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Bible answers two questions: What has God done to save me? and What must I +do to be saved? The propositions of Euclid are not invalidated by the fact that he +believed the earth to be flat. The ethics of Plato would not be disproved by his mistakes +with regard to the solar system. So religious authority is independent of merely secular +knowledge.—Sir Joshua Reynolds was a great painter, and a great teacher of his +art. His lectures on painting laid down principles which have been accepted as authority +for generations. But Joshua Reynolds illustrates his subject from history and +science. It was a day when both history and science were young. In some unimportant +matters of this sort, which do not in the least affect his conclusions, Sir Joshua +Reynolds makes an occasional slip; his statements are inaccurate. Does he, therefore, +cease to be an authority in matters of his art?—The Duke of Wellington said once that +no human being knew at what time of day the battle of Waterloo began. One historian +gets his story from one combatant, and he puts the hour at eleven in the morning. +Another historian gets his information from another combatant, and he puts it at noon. +Shall we say that this discrepancy argues error in the whole account, and that we have +no longer any certainty that the battle of Waterloo was ever fought at all? +</p> + +<p> +Such slight imperfections are to be freely admitted, while at the same time we insist +that the Bible, taken as a whole, is incomparably superior to all other books, and is +<emph><q>able to make thee wise unto salvation</q> (2 Tim. 3:15)</emph>. Hooker, Eccl. Polity: <q>Whatsoever is +spoken of God or things pertaining to God otherwise than truth is, though it seem an +honor, it is an injury. And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and +impair the credit of their deserved commendation, so we must likewise take great heed +lest, in attributing to Scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that do +cause even those things which it hath more abundantly to be less reverently esteemed.</q> +Baxter, Works, 21:349—<q>Those men who think that these human imperfections +of the writers do extend further, and may appear in some passages of chronologies or +history which are no part of the rule of faith and life, do not hereby destroy the Christian +cause. For God might enable his apostles to an infallible recording and preaching +of the gospel, even all things necessary to salvation, though he had not made them +infallible in every by-passage and circumstance, any more than they were indefectible +in life.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Bible, says Beet, <q>contains possible errors in small details or allusions, but it +gives us with absolute certainty the great facts of Christianity, and upon these great +facts, and upon these only, our faith is based.</q> Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, +15, 18, 65—<q>Teach that the shell is part of the kernel and men who find that they +cannot keep the shell will throw away shell and kernel together.... This overstatement +of inspiration made Renan, Bradlaugh and Ingersoll sceptics.... If in creation +God can work out a perfect result through imperfection why cannot he do the like +in inspiration? If in Christ God can appear in human weakness and ignorance, why +not in the <emph>written</emph> word?</q> +</p> + +<p> +We therefore take exception to the view of Watts, New Apologetic, 71—<q>Let the +theory of historical errors and scientific errors be adopted, and Christianity must share +the fate of Hinduism. If its inspired writers err when they tell us of earthly things, +none will believe when they tell of heavenly things.</q> Watts adduces instances of +<pb n='219'/><anchor id='Pg219'/> +Spinoza's giving up the form while claiming to hold the substance, and in this way +reducing revelation to a phenomenon of naturalistic pantheism. We reply that no <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a +priori</foreign> theory of perfection in divine inspiration must blind us to the evidence of actual +imperfection in Scripture. As in creation and in Christ, so in Scripture, God humbles +himself to adopt human and imperfect methods of self-revelation. See Jonathan +Edwards, Diary: <q>I observe that old men seldom have any advantage of new discoveries, +because they are beside the way to which they have been so long used. <hi rend='italic'>Resolved</hi>, +if ever I live to years, that I will be impartial to hear the reasons of all pretended discoveries, +and receive them if rational, however long soever I have been used to another +way of thinking.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bowne, The Immanence of God, 109, 110—<q>Those who would find the source of certainty +and the seat of authority in the Scriptures alone, or in the church alone, or reason +and conscience alone, rather than in the complex and indivisible coworking of all +these factors, should be reminded of the history of religious thought. The stiffest doctrine +of Scripture inerrancy has not prevented warring interpretations; and those who +would place the seat of authority in reason and conscience are forced to admit that +outside illumination may do much for both. In some sense the religion of the spirit is +a very important fact, but when it sets up in opposition to the religion of a book, the +light that is in it is apt to turn to darkness.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +10. While inspiration constitutes Scripture an authority more trustworthy +than are individual reason or the creeds of the church, the only +ultimate authority is Christ himself. +</p> + +<p> +Christ has not so constructed Scripture as to dispense with his personal +presence and teaching by his Spirit. The Scripture is the imperfect mirror +of Christ. It is defective, yet it reflects him and leads to him. Authority +resides not in it, but in him, and his Spirit enables the individual Christian +and the collective church progressively to distinguish the essential from +the non-essential, and so to perceive the truth as it is in Jesus. In thus +judging Scripture and interpreting Scripture, we are not rationalists, but +are rather believers in him who promised to be with us alway even unto +the end of the world and to lead us by his Spirit into all the truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +James speaks of the law as a mirror (<emph>James 1:23-25—<q>like unto a man beholding his natural face in +a mirror ... looketh into the perfect law</q></emph>); the law convicts of sin because it reflects Christ. +Paul speaks of the gospel as a mirror (<emph>2 Cor. 3:18—<q>we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the +Lord</q></emph>); the gospel transforms us because it reflects Christ. Yet both law and gospel +are imperfect; they are like mirrors of polished metal, whose surface is often dim, and +whose images are obscure; (<emph>1 Cor. 13:12—<q>For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face</q></emph>); +even inspired men know only in part, and prophesy only in part. Scripture itself is the +conception and utterance of a child, to be done away when that which is perfect is +come, and we see Christ as he is. +</p> + +<p> +Authority is the right to impose beliefs or to command obedience. The only ultimate +authority is God, for he is truth, justice and love. But he can impose beliefs and command +obedience only as he is known. Authority belongs therefore only to God revealed, +and because Christ is God revealed he can say: <emph><q>All authority hath been given unto me in heaven +and on earth</q> (Mat. 28:18)</emph>. The final authority in religion is Jesus Christ. Every one of +his revelations of God is authoritative. Both nature and human nature are such revelations. +He exercises his authority through delegated and subordinate authorities, +such as parents and civil government. These rightfully claim obedience so long as +they hold to their own respective spheres and recognize their relation of dependence +upon him. <emph><q>The powers that be are ordained of God</q> (Rom. 13:1)</emph>, even though they are imperfect +manifestations of his wisdom and righteousness. The decisions of the Supreme Court +are authoritative even though the judges are fallible and come short of establishing +absolute justice. Authority is not infallibility, in the government either of the family +or of the state. +</p> + +<p> +The church of the middle ages was regarded as possessed of absolute authority. But +the Protestant Reformation showed how vain were these pretensions. The church is +an authority only as it recognizes and expresses the supreme authority of Christ. The +Reformers felt the need of some external authority in place of the church. They substituted +<pb n='220'/><anchor id='Pg220'/> +the Scripture. The phrase <q>the word of God,</q> which designates the truth +orally uttered or affecting the minds of men, came to signify only a book. Supreme +authority was ascribed to it. It often usurped the place of Christ. While we vindicate +the proper authority of Scripture, we would show that its authority is not immediate +and absolute, but mediate and relative, through human and imperfect records, and +needing a supplementary and divine teaching to interpret them. The authority of +Scripture is not apart from Christ or above Christ, but only in subordination to him +and to his Spirit. He who inspired Scripture must enable us to interpret Scripture. +This is not a doctrine of rationalism, for it holds to man's absolute dependence upon +the enlightening Spirit of Christ. It is not a doctrine of mysticism, for it holds that +Christ teaches us only by opening to us the meaning of his past revelations. We do not +expect any new worlds in our astronomy, nor do we expect any new Scriptures in our +theology. But we do expect that the same Christ who gave the Scriptures will give us +new insight into their meaning and will enable us to make new applications of their +teachings. +</p> + +<p> +The right and duty of private judgment with regard to Scripture belong to no +ecclesiastical caste, but are inalienable liberties of the whole church of Christ and of +each individual member of that church. And yet this judgment is, from another +point of view, no private judgment. It is not the judgment of arbitrariness or caprice. +It does not make the Christian consciousness supreme, if we mean by this term the +consciousness of Christians apart from the indwelling Christ. When once we come to +Christ, he joins us to himself, he seats us with him upon his throne, he imparts to us his +Spirit, he bids us use our reason in his service. In judging Scripture, we make not ourselves +but Christ supreme, and recognize him as the only ultimate and infallible authority +in matters of religion. We can believe that the total revelation of Christ in Scripture is +an authority superior to individual reason or to any single affirmation of the church, +while yet we believe that this very authority of Scripture has its limitation, and that +Christ himself must teach us what this total revelation is. So the judgment which +Scripture encourages us to pass upon its own limitations only induces a final and more +implicit reliance upon the living and personal Son of God. He has never intended that +Scripture should be a substitute for his own presence, and it is only his Spirit that is +promised to lead us into all the truth. +</p> + +<p> +On the authority of Scripture, see A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 113-136—<q>The +source of all authority is not Scripture, but Christ.... Nowhere are we told that the +Scripture of itself is able to convince the sinner or to bring him to God. It is a glittering +sword, but it is <emph><q>the sword of the Spirit</q> (Eph. 6:17)</emph>; and unless the Spirit use it, it will never +pierce the heart. It is a heavy hammer, but only the Spirit can wield it so that it breaks +in pieces the flinty rock. It is the type locked in the form, but the paper will never +receive an impression until the Spirit shall apply the power. No mere instrument +shall have the glory that belongs to God. Every soul shall feel its entire dependence +upon him. Only the Holy Spirit can turn the outer word into an inner word. And the +Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Christ comes into direct contact with the soul. He +himself gives his witness to the truth. He bears testimony to Scripture, even more +than Scripture bears testimony to him.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +11. The preceding discussion enables us at least to lay down three cardinal +principles and to answer three common questions with regard to +inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +Principles: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The human mind can be inhabited and energized by God +while yet attaining and retaining its own highest intelligence and freedom. +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The Scriptures being the work of the one God, as well as of the men +in whom God moved and dwelt, constitute an articulated and organic unity. +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The unity and authority of Scripture as a whole are entirely consistent +with its gradual evolution and with great imperfection in its non-essential +parts. +</p> + +<p> +Questions: (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Is any part of Scripture uninspired? Answer: Every +part of Scripture is inspired in its connection and relation with every +other part. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Are there degrees of inspiration? Answer: There are +degrees of value, but not of inspiration. Each part in its connection with +<pb n='221'/><anchor id='Pg221'/> +the rest is made completely true, and completeness has no degrees. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) +How may we know what parts are of most value and what is the teaching +of the whole? Answer: The same Spirit of Christ who inspired the +Bible is promised to take of the things of Christ, and, by showing them to +us, to lead us progressively into all the truth. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice the value of the Old Testament, revealing as it does the natural attributes of +God, as a basis and background for the revelation of mercy in the New Testament. +Revelation was in many parts <emph>(πολυμερῶς—Heb. 1:1)</emph> as well as in many ways. <q>Each +individual oracle, taken by itself, was partial and incomplete</q> (Robertson Smith, O. T. +in Jewish Ch., 21). But the person and the words of Christ sum up and complete the +revelation, so that, taken together and in their connection with him, the various parts +of Scripture constitute an infallible and sufficient rule of faith and practice. See +Browne, Inspiration of the N. T.; Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the N. T.; Stanley +Leathes, Structure of the O. T.; Rainy, Delivery and Development of Doctrine. See +A. H. Strong, on Method of Inspiration, in Philosophy and Religion, 148-155. +</p> + +<p> +The divine influence upon the minds of post-biblical writers, leading to the composition +of such allegories as Pilgrim's Progress, and such dramas as Macbeth, is to be +denominated illumination rather than inspiration, for the reasons that these writings +contain error as well as truth in matters of religion and morals; that they add nothing +essential to what the Scriptures give us; and that, even in their expression of truth +previously made known, they are not worthy of a place in the sacred canon. W. H. P. +Faunce: <q>How far is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress true to present Christian experience? +It is untrue: 1. In its despair of this world. The Pilgrim has to leave this world in +order to be saved. Modern experience longs to do God's will <emph>here</emph>, and to save others +instead of forsaking them. 2. In its agony over sin and frightful conflict. Bunyan +illustrates modern experience better by Christiana and her children who go through +the Valley and the Shadow of Death in the daytime, and without conflict with Apollyon. +3. In the constant uncertainty of the issue of the Pilgrim's fight. Christian enters +Doubting Castle and meets Giant Despair, even after he has won most of his victories. +In modern experience, <emph><q>at evening time there shall be light</q>—(Zech. 14:7)</emph>. 4. In the constant +conviction of an absent Christ. Bunyan's Christ is never met this side of the Celestial +City. The Cross at which the burden dropped is the symbol of a sacrificial act, but it +is not the Savior himself. Modern experience has Christ living in us and with us +alway, and not simply a Christ whom we hope to see at the end of the journey.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Beyschlag, N. T. Theol., 2:18—<q>Paul declares his own prophecy and inspiration to +be essentially imperfect (<emph>1 Cor. 13:9, 10, 12; cf. 1 Cor. 12:10; 1 Thess. 5:19-21</emph>). This admission +justifies a Christian criticism even of his views. He can pronounce an anathema on +those who preach <emph><q>a different gospel</q> (Gal. 1:8, 9)</emph>, for what belongs to simple faith, the facts +of salvation, are absolutely certain. But where prophetic thought and speech go +beyond these facts of salvation, wood and straw may be mingled with the gold, silver +and precious stones built upon the one foundation. So he distinguishes his own modest +γνώμη from the ἐπιταγὴ κυρίον (1 Cor. 7:25, 40).</q> Clarke, Christian Theology, 44—<q>The +authority of Scripture is not one that binds, but one that sets free. Paul is writing of +Scripture when he says: <emph><q>Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in faith +ye stand fast</q> (2 Cor. 1:24)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Cremer, in Herzog, Realencyc., 183-203—<q>The church doctrine is <emph>that</emph> the Scriptures +are inspired, but it has never been determined by the church <emph>how</emph> they are inspired.</q> +Butler, Analogy, part <hi rend='smallcaps'>ii</hi>, chap. <hi rend='smallcaps'>iii</hi>—<q>The only question concerning the truth of Christianity +is, whether it be a real revelation, not whether it be attended with every circumstance +which we should have looked for; and concerning the authority of Scripture, +whether it be what it claims to be, not whether it be a book of such sort, and so +promulgated, as weak men are apt to fancy a book containing a divine revelation +should. And therefore, neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccuracy of style, nor +various readings, nor early disputes about the authors of particular parts, nor any +other things of the like kind, though they had been much more considerable than they +are, could overthrow the authority of the Scripture; unless the prophets, apostles, or +our Lord had promised that the book containing the divine revelation should be secure +from these things.</q> W. Robertson Smith: <q>If am asked why I receive the Scriptures +as the word of God and as the only perfect rule of faith and life, I answer with all the +Fathers of the Protestant church: <q>Because the Bible is the only record of the redeeming +love of God; because in the Bible alone I find God drawing nigh to men in Jesus +<pb n='222'/><anchor id='Pg222'/> +Christ, and declaring his will for our salvation. And the record I know to be true by +the witness of his Spirit in my heart, whereby I am assured that none other than God +himself is able to speak such words to my soul.</q></q> The gospel of Jesus Christ is the +ἅπαξ λεγόμενον of the Almighty. See Marcus Dods, The Bible, its Origin and Nature; +Bowne, The Immanence of God, 66-115. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. Objections to the Doctrine of Inspiration.</head> + +<p> +In connection with a divine-human work like the Bible, insoluble difficulties +may be expected to present themselves. So long, however, as its +inspiration is sustained by competent and sufficient evidence, these difficulties +cannot justly prevent our full acceptance of the doctrine, any more than +disorder and mystery in nature warrant us in setting aside the proofs of its +divine authorship. These difficulties are lessened with time; some have +already disappeared; many may be due to ignorance, and may be removed +hereafter; those which are permanent may be intended to stimulate inquiry +and to discipline faith. +</p> + +<p> +It is noticeable that the common objections to inspiration are urged, not +so much against the religious teaching of the Scriptures, as against certain +errors in secular matters which are supposed to be interwoven with it. But +if these are proved to be errors indeed, it will not necessarily overthrow +the doctrine of inspiration; it will only compel us to give a larger place +to the human element in the composition of the Scriptures, and to regard +them more exclusively as a text-book of religion. As a rule of religious +faith and practice, they will still be the infallible word of God. The Bible +is to be judged as a book whose one aim is man's rescue from sin and +reconciliation to God, and in these respects it will still be found a record +of substantial truth. This will appear more fully as we examine the objections +one by one. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>The Scriptures are given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how to go to +heaven.</q> Their aim is certainly not to teach science or history, except so far as science +or history is essential to their moral and religious purpose. Certain of their doctrines, +like the virgin-birth of Christ and his bodily resurrection, are historical facts, and certain +facts, like that of creation, are also doctrines. With regard to these great facts, +we claim that inspiration has given us accounts that are essentially trustworthy, whatever +may be their imperfections in detail. To undermine the scientific trustworthiness +of the Indian Vedas is to undermine the religion which they teach. But this only +because their scientific doctrine is an essential part of their religious teaching. In the +Bible, religion is not dependent upon physical science. The Scriptures aim only to +declare the creatorship and lordship of the personal God. The method of his working +may be described pictorially without affecting this substantial truth. The Indian cosmogonies, +on the other hand, polytheistic or pantheistic as they are, teach essential +untruth, by describing the origin of things as due to a series of senseless transformations +without basis of will or wisdom. +</p> + +<p> +So long as the difficulties of Scripture are difficulties of form rather than substance, +of its incidental features rather than its main doctrine, we may say of its obscurities as +Isocrates said of the work of Heraclitus: <q>What I understand of it is so excellent +that I can draw conclusions from it concerning what I do not understand.</q> <q>If Bengel +finds things in the Bible too hard for his critical faculty, he finds nothing too hard +for his believing faculty.</q> With John Smyth, who died at Amsterdam in 1612, we may +say: <q>I profess I have changed, and shall be ready still to change, for the better</q>; and +with John Robinson, in his farewell address to the Pilgrim Fathers: <q>I am verily persuaded +that the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth from his holy word.</q> See +Luthardt, Saving Truths, 205; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 205 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Bap. Rev., April, 1881: +art. by O. P. Eaches; Cardinal Newman, in 19th Century, Feb. 1884. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='223'/><anchor id='Pg223'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Errors in matters of Science.</head> + +<p> +Upon this objection we remark: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We do not admit the existence of scientific error in the Scripture. +What is charged as such is simply truth presented in popular and impressive +forms. +</p> + +<p> +The common mind receives a more correct idea of unfamiliar facts when +these are narrated in phenomenal language and in summary form than +when they are described in the abstract terms and in the exact detail of +science. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Scripture writers unconsciously observe Herbert Spencer's principle of style: +Economy of the reader's or hearer's attention,—the more energy is expended upon the +form the less there remains to grapple with the substance (Essays, 1-47). Wendt, +Teaching of Jesus, 1:130, brings out the principle of Jesus' style: <q>The greatest clearness +in the smallest compass.</q> Hence Scripture uses the phrases of common life +rather than scientific terminology. Thus the language of appearance is probably used +in <emph>Gen. 7:19—<q>all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered</q></emph>—such would be the +appearance, even if the deluge were local instead of universal; in <emph>Josh. 10:12, 13—<q>and the +sun stood still</q></emph>—such would be the appearance, even if the sun's rays were merely refracted +so as preternaturally to lengthen the day; in <emph>Ps. 93:1—<q>The world also is established, that it +cannot be moved</q></emph>—such is the appearance, even though the earth turns on its axis and +moves round the sun. In narrative, to substitute for <q>sunset</q> some scientific description +would divert attention from the main subject. Would it be preferable, in the +O. T., if we should read: <q>When the revolution of the earth upon its axis caused the rays +of the solar luminary to impinge horizontally upon the retina, <emph>Isaac went out to meditate</emph></q> (<emph>Gen. +24:63</emph>)? <q>Le secret d'ennuyer est de tout dire.</q> Charles Dickens, in his American +Notes, 72, describes a prairie sunset: <q>The decline of day here was very gorgeous, +tinging the firmament deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch +above us</q> (quoted by Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 97). Did Dickens therefore +believe the firmament to be a piece of solid masonry? +</p> + +<p> +Canon Driver rejects the Bible story of creation because the distinctions made by +modern science cannot be found in the primitive Hebrew. He thinks the fluid state of +the earth's substance should have been called <q>surging chaos,</q> instead of <emph><q>waters</q> (Gen. +1:2)</emph>. <q>An admirable phrase for modern and cultivated minds,</q> replies Mr. Gladstone, +<q>but a phrase that would have left the pupils of the Mosaic writer in exactly the condition +out of which it was his purpose to bring them, namely, a state of utter ignorance +and darkness, with possibly a little ripple of bewilderment to boot</q>; see Sunday School +Times, April 26, 1890. The fallacy of holding that Scripture gives in detail all the facts +connected with a historical narrative has led to many curious arguments. The Gregorian +Calendar which makes the year begin in January was opposed by representing +that Eve was tempted at the outset by an apple, which was possible only in case the +year began in September; see Thayer, Change of Attitude towards the Bible, 46. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It is not necessary to a proper view of inspiration to suppose that +the human authors of Scripture had in mind the proper scientific interpretation +of the natural events they recorded. +</p> + +<p> +It is enough that this was in the mind of the inspiring Spirit. Through +the comparatively narrow conceptions and inadequate language of the +Scripture writers, the Spirit of inspiration may have secured the expression +of the truth in such germinal form as to be intelligible to the times +in which it was first published, and yet capable of indefinite expansion as +science should advance. In the miniature picture of creation in the first +chapter of Genesis, and in its power of adjusting itself to every advance of +scientific investigation, we have a strong proof of inspiration. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The word <emph><q>day</q></emph> in <emph>Genesis 1</emph> is an instance of this general mode of expression. It would +be absurd to teach early races, that deal only in small numbers, about the myriads of +years of creation. The child's object-lesson, with its graphic summary, conveys to his +<pb n='224'/><anchor id='Pg224'/> +mind more of truth than elaborate and exact statement would convey. Conant (<emph>Genesis +2:10</emph>) says of the description of Eden and its rivers: <q>Of course the author's object is +not a minute topographical description, but a general and impressive conception as a +whole.</q> Yet the progress of science only shows that these accounts are not less but +more true than was supposed by those who first received them. Neither the Hindu +Shasters nor any heathen cosmogony can bear such comparison with the results of +science. Why change our interpretations of Scripture so often? Answer: We do not +assume to be original teachers of science, but only to interpret Scripture with the new +lights we have. See Dana, Manual of Geology, 741-746; Guyot, in Bib. Sac., 1855:324; +Dawson, Story of Earth and Man, 32. +</p> + +<p> +This conception of early Scripture teaching as elementary and suited to the childhood +of the race would make it possible, if the facts so required, to interpret the early chapters +of Genesis as mythical or legendary. God might condescend to <q>Kindergarten formulas.</q> +Goethe said that <q>We should deal with children as God deals with us: we are +happiest under the influence of innocent delusions.</q> Longfellow: <q>How beautiful is +youth! how bright it gleams, With its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of beginnings, +story without end, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!</q> We might +hold with Goethe and with Longfellow, if we only excluded from God's teaching all +essential error. The narratives of Scripture might be addressed to the imagination, +and so might take mythical or legendary form, while yet they conveyed substantial +truth that could in no other way be so well apprehended by early man; see Robert +Browning's poem, <q>Development,</q> in Asolando. The Koran, on the other hand, leaves +no room for imagination, but fixes the number of the stars and declares the firmament +to be solid. Henry Drummond: <q>Evolution has given us a new Bible.... The Bible +is not a book which has been made,—it has grown.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bagehot tells us that <q>One of the most remarkable of Father Newman's Oxford sermons +explains how science teaches that the earth goes round the sun, and how Scripture +teaches that the sun goes round the earth; and it ends by advising the discreet +believer to accept both.</q> This is mental bookkeeping by double entry; see Mackintosh, +in Am. Jour. Theology, Jan. 1899:41. Lenormant, in Contemp. Rev., Nov. 1879—<q>While +the tradition of the deluge holds so considerable a place in the legendary memories of +all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their +many cosmogonic speculations, have not afforded any, even distant, allusion to this +cataclysm.</q> Lenormant here wrongly assumed that the language of Scripture is scientific +language. If it is the language of appearance, then the deluge may be a local and +not a universal catastrophe. G. F. Wright, Ice Age in North America, suggests that +the numerous traditions of the deluge may have had their origin in the enormous +floods of the receding glacier. In South-western Queensland, the standard gauge at +the Meteorological Office registered 10-¾, 20, 35-¾, 10-¾ inches of rainfall, in all 77-¼ inches, +in four successive days. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It may be safely said that science has not yet shown any fairly +interpreted passage of Scripture to be untrue. +</p> + +<p> +With regard to the antiquity of the race, we may say that owing to the +differences of reading between the Septuagint and the Hebrew there is room +for doubt whether either of the received chronologies has the sanction of +inspiration. Although science has made probable the existence of man +upon the earth at a period preceding the dates assigned in these chronologies, +no statement of inspired Scripture is thereby proved false. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Usher's scheme of chronology, on the basis of the Hebrew, puts the creation 4004 +years before Christ. Hales's, on the basis of the Septuagint, puts it 5411 B. C. The +Fathers followed the LXX. But the genealogies before and after the flood may present +us only with the names of <q>leading and representative men.</q> Some of these +names seem to stand, not for individuals, but for tribes, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>: <emph>Gen. 10:16</emph>—where Canaan +is said to have begotten the Jebusite and the Amorite; 29—Joktan begot Ophir and +Havilah. In <emph>Gen. 10:6</emph>, we read that Mizraim belonged to the sons of Ham. But Mizraim +is a dual, coined to designate the two parts, Upper and Lower Egypt. Hence a son of +Ham could not bear the name of Mizraim. <emph>Gen. 10:13</emph> reads: <emph><q>And Mizraim begat Ludim.</q></emph> But +Ludim is a plural form. The word signifies a whole nation, and <emph><q>begat</q></emph> is not employed +in a literal sense. So in <emph>verses 15, 16: <q>Canaan begat ... the Jebusite,</q></emph> a tribe; the ancestors of +<pb n='225'/><anchor id='Pg225'/> +which would have been called Jebus. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, however, are names, +not of tribes or nations, but of individuals; see Prof. Edward König, of Bonn, in S. S. +Times, Dec. 14, 1901. E. G. Robinson: <q>We may pretty safely go back to the time of +Abraham, but no further.</q> Bib. Sac., 1899:403—<q>The lists in Genesis may relate to +families and not to individuals.</q> +</p> + +<p> +G. F. Wright, Ant. and Origin of Human Race, lect. II—<q>When in David's time it +is said that <emph><q>Shebuel, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler over the treasures</q> (1 Chron. 23:16; +26:24)</emph>, Gershom was the immediate son of Moses, but Shebuel was separated by many +generations from Gershom. So when Seth is said to have begotten Enosh when he was +105 years old (<emph>Gen. 5:6</emph>), it is, according to Hebrew usage, capable of meaning that Enosh +was descended from the branch of Seth's line which set off at the 105th year, with any +number of intermediate links omitted.</q> The appearance of completeness in the text +may be due to alteration of the text in the course of centuries; see Bib. Com., 1:30. +In the phrase <emph><q>Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham</q> (Mat. 1:1)</emph> thirty-eight to forty +generations are omitted. It may be so in some of the Old Testament genealogies. +There is room for a hundred thousand years, if necessary (Conant). W. H. Green, in +Bib. Sac., April, 1890:303, and in Independent, June 18, 1891—<q>The Scriptures furnish +us with no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham. The +Mosaic records do not fix, and were not intended to fix, the precise date of the Flood +or of the Creation.... They give a series of specimen lives, with appropriate numbers +attached, to show by selected examples what was the original term of human life. To +make them a complete and continuous record, and to deduce from them the antiquity +of the race, is to put them to a use they were never intended to serve.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Comparison with secular history also shows that no such length of time as 100,000 +years for man's existence upon earth seems necessary. Rawlinson, in Jour. Christ. +Philosophy, 1883:339-364, dates the beginning of the Chaldean monarchy at 2400 B. C. +Lenormant puts the entrance of the Sanskritic Indians into Hindustan at 2500 B. C. +The earliest Vedas are between 1200 and 1000 B. C. (Max Müller). Call of Abraham, +probably 1945 B. C. Chinese history possibly began as early as 2356 B. C. (Legge). +The old Empire in Egypt possibly began as early as 2650 B. C. Rawlinson puts the flood +at 3600 B. C., and adds 2000 years between the deluge and the creation, making the age +of the world 1886 + 3600 + 2000 = 7486. S. R. Pattison, in Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 13, +concludes that <q>a term of about 8000 years is warranted by deductions from history, +geology, and Scripture.</q> See also Duke of Argyll, Primeval Man, 76-128; Cowles on +Genesis, 49-80; Dawson, Fossil Men, 246; Hicks, in Bap. Rev., July, 1884 (15000 years); +Zöckler, Urgeschichte der Erde und des Menschen, 137-163. On the critical side, see +Crooker, The New Bible and its Uses, 80-102. +</p> + +<p> +Evidence of a geological nature seems to be accumulating, which tends to prove +man's advent upon earth at least ten thousand years ago. An arrowhead of tempered +copper and a number of human bones were found in the Rocky Point mines, near Gilman, +Colorado, 460 feet beneath the surface of the earth, embedded in a vein of silver-bearing +ore. More than a hundred dollars worth of ore clung to the bones when they +were removed from the mine. On the age of the earth and the antiquity of man, see +G. F. Wright, Man and the Glacial Epoch, lectures <hi rend='smallcaps'>iv</hi> and <hi rend='smallcaps'>x</hi>, and in McClure's Magazine, +June, 1901, and Bib. Sac., 1903:31—<q>Charles Darwin first talked about 300 million +years as a mere trifle of geologic time. His son George limits it to 50 or 100 million; +Croll and Young to 60 or 70 million; Wallace to 28 million; Lord Kelvin to 24 +million; Thompson and Newcomb to only 10 million.</q> Sir Archibald Geikie, at the +British Association at Dover in 1899, said that 100 million years sufficed for that small +portion of the earth's history which is registered in the stratified rocks of the crust. +</p> + +<p> +Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 122, considers vegetable life to have existed on the +planet for at least 100 million years. Warren Upham, in Pop. Science Monthly, Dec. +1893:153—<q>How old is the earth? 100 million years.</q> D. G. Brinton, in Forum, Dec. +1893:454, puts the minimum limit of man's existence on earth at 50,000 years. G. F. +Wright does not doubt that man's presence on this continent was preglacial, say eleven +or twelve thousand years ago. He asserts that there has been a subsidence of Central +Asia and Southern Russia since man's advent, and that Arctic seals are still found in +Lake Baikal in Siberia. While he grants that Egyptian civilization may go back to +5000 B. C., he holds that no more than 6000 or 7000 years before this are needed as preparation +for history. Le Conte, Elements of Geology, 613—<q>Men saw the great glaciers of +the second glacial epoch, but there is no reliable evidence of their existence before the +first glacial epoch. Deltas, implements, lake shores, waterfalls, indicate only 7000 to +<pb n='226'/><anchor id='Pg226'/> +10,000 years.</q> Recent calculations of Prof. Prestwich, the most eminent living geologist +of Great Britain, tend to bring the close of the glacial epoch down to within 10,000 +or 15,000 years. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Even if error in matters of science were found in Scripture, it would +not disprove inspiration, since inspiration concerns itself with science only +so far as correct scientific views are necessary to morals and religion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Great harm results from identifying Christian doctrine with specific theories of the +universe. The Roman church held that the revolution of the sun around the earth +was taught in Scripture, and that Christian faith required the condemnation of Galileo; +John Wesley thought Christianity to be inseparable from a belief in witchcraft; +opposers of the higher criticism regard the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as +<q>articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ.</q> We mistake greatly when we link inspiration +with scientific doctrine. The purpose of Scripture is not to teach science, but to +teach religion, and, with the exception of God's creatorship and preserving agency in +the universe, no scientific truth is essential to the system of Christian doctrine. Inspiration +might leave the Scripture writers in possession of the scientific ideas of their +time, while yet they were empowered correctly to declare both ethical and religious +truth. A right spirit indeed gains some insight into the meaning of nature, and so the +Scripture writers seem to be preserved from incorporating into their productions +much of the scientific error of their day. But entire freedom from such error must +not be regarded as a necessary accompaniment of inspiration. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Errors in matters of History.</head> + +<p> +To this objection we reply: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) What are charged as such are often mere mistakes in transcription, +and have no force as arguments against inspiration, unless it can first be +shown that inspired documents are by the very fact of their inspiration +exempt from the operation of those laws which affect the transmission of +other ancient documents. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We have no right to expect that the inspiration of the original writer will be followed +by a miracle in the case of every copyist. Why believe in infallible copyists, more than +in infallible printers? God educates us to care for his word, and for its correct transmission. +Reverence has kept the Scriptures more free from various readings than +are other ancient manuscripts. None of the existing variations endanger any important +article of faith. Yet some mistakes in transcription there probably are. In <emph>1 Chron. +22:14</emph>, instead of 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver (= $3,750,000,000), +Josephus divides the sum by ten. Dr. Howard Osgood: <q>A French writer, Revillout, +has accounted for the differing numbers in Kings and Chronicles, just as he accounts +for the same differences in Egyptian and Assyrian later accounts, by the change in the +value of money and debasement of issues. He shows the change all over Western +Asia.</q> <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 45. +</p> + +<p> +In <emph>2 Chron. 13:3, 17</emph>, where the numbers of men in the armies of little Palestine are +stated as 400,000 and 800,000, and 500,000 are said to have been slain in a single battle, +<q>some ancient copies of the Vulgate and Latin translations of Josephus have 40,000, +80,000, and 50,000</q>; see Annotated Paragraph Bible, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. In <emph>2 Chron. 17:14-19</emph>, Jehoshaphat's +army aggregates 1,160,000, besides the garrisons of his fortresses. It is +possible that by errors in transcription these numbers have been multiplied by ten. +Another explanation however, and perhaps a more probable one, is given under (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) +below. Similarly, compare <emph>1 Sam. 6:19</emph>, where 50,070 are slain, with the 70 of Josephus; +<emph>2 Sam. 8:4—<q>1,700 horsemen,</q></emph> with <emph>1 Chron. 18:4—<q>7,000 horsemen</q></emph>; <emph>Esther 9:16</emph>—75,000 slain by the +Jews, with LXX—15,000. In <emph>Mat. 27:9</emph>, we have <emph><q>Jeremiah</q></emph> for <emph><q>Zechariah</q></emph>—this Calvin +allows to be a mistake; and, if a mistake, then one made by the first copyist, for it +appears in all the uncials, all the manuscripts and all the versions except the Syriac +Peshito where it is omitted, evidently on the authority of the individual transcriber +and translator. In <emph>Acts 7:16—<q>the tomb that Abraham bought</q></emph>—Hackett regards <emph><q>Abraham</q></emph> as +a clerical error for <q>Jacob</q> (compare <emph>Gen. 33:18, 19</emph>). See Bible Com., 3:165, 249, 251, +317. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='227'/><anchor id='Pg227'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Other so-called errors are to be explained as a permissible use of +round numbers, which cannot be denied to the sacred writers except upon +the principle that mathematical accuracy was more important than the +general impression to be secured by the narrative. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Numbers 25:9</emph>, we read that there fell in the plague 24,000; <emph>1 Cor. 10:8</emph> says 23,000. The +actual number was possibly somewhere between the two. Upon a similar principle, we +do not scruple to celebrate the Landing of the Pilgrims on December 22nd and the +birth of Christ on December 25th. We speak of the battle of Bunker Hill, although at +Bunker Hill no battle was really fought. In <emph>Ex. 12:40, 41</emph>, the sojourn of the Israelites in +Egypt is declared to be 430 years. Yet Paul, in <emph>Gal. 3:17</emph>, says that the giving of the law +through Moses was 430 years after the call of Abraham, whereas the call of Abraham +took place 215 years before Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt, and Paul should +have said 645 years instead of 430. Franz Delitzsch: <q>The Hebrew Bible counts four +centuries of Egyptian sojourn (<emph>Gen. 15:13-16</emph>), more accurately, 430 years (<emph>Ex. 12:40</emph>); but +according to the LXX (<emph>Ex. 12:40</emph>) this number comprehends the sojourn in Canaan and +Egypt, so that 215 years come to the pilgrimage in Canaan, and 215 to the servitude in +Egypt. This kind of calculation is not exclusively Hellenistic; it is also found in the +oldest Palestinian Midrash. Paul stands on this side in <emph>Gal. 3:17</emph>, making, not the immigration +into Egypt, but the covenant with Abraham the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>terminus a quo</foreign> of the 430 years +which end in the Exodus from Egypt and in the legislation</q>; see also Hovey, Com. on +<emph>Gal. 3:17</emph>. It was not Paul's purpose to write chronology,—so he may follow the LXX, +and call the time between the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law to Moses +430 years, rather than the actual 600. If he had given the larger number, it might have +led to perplexity and discussion about a matter which had nothing to do with the vital +question in hand. Inspiration may have employed current though inaccurate statements +as to matters of history, because they were the best available means of impressing +upon men's minds truth of a more important sort. In <emph>Gen. 15:13</emph> the 430 years is +called in round numbers 400 years, and so in <emph>Acts 7:6</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Diversities of statement in accounts of the same event, so long as +they touch no substantial truth, may be due to the meagreness of the +narrative, and might be fully explained if some single fact, now unrecorded, +were only known. To explain these apparent discrepancies would not only +be beside the purpose of the record, but would destroy one valuable +evidence of the independence of the several writers or witnesses. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On the Stokes trial, the judge spoke of two apparently conflicting testimonies as +neither of them necessarily false. On the difference between Matthew and Luke as +to the scene of the Sermon on the Mount (<emph>Mat. 5:1</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Luke 6:17</emph>) see Stanley, Sinai and +Palestine, 360. As to one blind man or two (<emph>Mat. 20:30</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Luke 18:35</emph>) see Bliss, Com. on +Luke, 275, and Gardiner, in Bib. Sac., July, 1879:513, 514; Jesus may have healed the blind +men during a day's excursion from Jericho, and it might be described as <q>when they +went out,</q> or <q>as they drew nigh to Jericho.</q> Prof. M. B. Riddle: <q><emph>Luke 18:35</emph> describes +the general movement towards Jerusalem and not the precise detail preceding the miracle; +<emph>Mat. 20:30</emph> intimates that the miracle occurred during an excursion from the city,—Luke +afterwards telling of the final departure</q>; Calvin holds to two meetings; Godet +to two cities; if Jesus healed two blind men, he certainly healed one, and Luke did not +need to mention more than one, even if he knew of both; see Broadus on <emph>Mat. 20:30</emph>. In +<emph>Mat. 8:28</emph>, where Matthew has two demoniacs at Gadara and Luke has only one at Gerasa, +Broadus supposes that the village of Gerasa belonged to the territory of the city of +Gadara, a few miles to the Southeast of the lake, and he quotes the case of Lafayette: +<q>In the year 1824 Lafayette visited the United States and was welcomed with honors +and pageants. Some historians will mention only Lafayette, but others will relate the +same visit as made and the same honors as enjoyed by two persons, namely, Lafayette +and his son. Will not both be right?</q> On Christ's last Passover, see Robinson, +Harmony, 212; E. H. Sears, Fourth Gospel, Appendix A; Edersheim, Life and Times +of the Messiah, 2:507. Augustine: <q>Locutiones variæ, sed non contrariæ: dlversæ, sed +non adversæ.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bartlett, in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1880:46, 47, gives the following modern illustrations: +Winslow's Journal (of Plymouth Plantation) speaks of a ship sent out <q>by Master +Thomas Weston.</q> But Bradford in his far briefer narrative of the matter, mentions it +<pb n='228'/><anchor id='Pg228'/> +as sent <q>by Mr. Weston and another.</q> John Adams, in his letters, tells the story of the +daughter of Otis about her father's destruction of his own manuscripts. At one time +he makes her say: <q>In one of his unhappy moments he committed them all to the +flames</q>; yet, in the second letter, she is made to say that <q>he was several days in doing +it.</q> One newspaper says: President Hayes attended the Bennington centennial; +another newspaper says: the President and Mrs. Hayes; a third: the President and his +Cabinet; a fourth: the President, Mrs. Hayes and a majority of his Cabinet. Archibald +Forbes, in his account of Napoleon III at Sedan, points out an agreement of narratives +as to the salient points, combined with <q>the hopeless and bewildering discrepancies as +to details,</q> even as these are reported by eye-witnesses, including himself, Bismarck, +and General Sheridan who was on the ground, as well as others. +</p> + +<p> +Thayer, Change of Attitude, 52, speaks of Luke's <q>plump anachronism in the matter +of Theudas</q>—<emph>Acts 5:36—<q>For before those days rose up Theudas.</q></emph> Josephus, Antiquities, 20:5:1, +mentions an insurrectionary Theudas, but the date and other incidents do not agree with +those of Luke. Josephus however may have mistaken the date as easily as Luke, or he +may refer to another man of the same name. The inscription on the Cross is given in +<emph>Mark 15:26</emph>, as <emph><q>The King of the Jews</q></emph>; in <emph>Luke 23:38</emph>, as <emph><q>This is the King of the Jews</q></emph>; in <emph>Mat. 27:37</emph>, as +<emph><q>This is Jesus the King of the Jews</q></emph>; and in <emph>John 19:19</emph>, as <emph><q>Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.</q></emph> The +entire superscription, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, may have contained every word +given by the several evangelists combined, and may have read <q>This is Jesus of Nazareth, +the King of the Jews,</q> and each separate report may be entirely correct so far as +it goes. See, on the general subject, Haley, Alleged Discrepancies; Fisher, Beginnings +of Christianity, 406-412. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) While historical and archæological discovery in many important +particulars goes to sustain the general correctness of the Scripture narratives, +and no statement essential to the moral and religious teaching of +Scripture has been invalidated, inspiration is still consistent with much +imperfection in historical detail and its narratives <q>do not seem to be +exempted from possibilities of error.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The words last quoted are those of Sanday. In his Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, +400, he remarks that <q>Inspiration belongs to the historical books rather as conveying a +religious lesson, than as histories; rather as interpreting, than as narrating plain matter +of fact. The crucial issue is that in these last respects they do not seem to be exempted +from possibilities of error.</q> R. V. Foster, Systematic Theology, (Cumberland Presbyterian): +The Scripture writers <q>were not inspired to do otherwise than to take these +statements as they found them.</q> Inerrancy is not freedom from misstatements, but +from error defined as <q>that which misleads in any serious or important sense.</q> When +we compare the accounts of <emph>1</emph> and <emph>2 Chronicles</emph> with those of <emph>1</emph> and <emph>2 Kings</emph> we find in the former +an exaggeration of numbers, a suppression of material unfavorable to the writer's +purpose, and an emphasis upon that which is favorable, that contrasts strongly with +the method of the latter. These characteristics are so continuous that the theory of +mistakes in transcription does not seem sufficient to account for the facts. The +author's aim was to draw out the religious lessons of the story, and historical details +are to him of comparative unimportance. +</p> + +<p> +H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 108—<q>Inspiration did not correct the +Chronicler's historical point of view, more than it corrected his scientific point of view, +which no doubt made the earth the centre of the solar system. It therefore left him +open to receive documents, and to use them, which idealized the history of the past, +and described David and Solomon according to the ideas of later times and the priestly +class. David's sins are omitted, and numbers are multiplied, to give greater dignity to +the earlier kingdom.</q> As Tennyson's Idylls of the King give a nobler picture of King +Arthur, and a more definite aspect to his history, than actual records justify, yet the +picture teaches great moral and religious lessons, so the Chronicler seems to have manipulated +his material in the interest of religion. Matters of arithmetic were minor +matters. <q>Majoribus intentus est.</q> +</p> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson: <q>The numbers of the Bible are characteristic of a semi-barbarous +age. The writers took care to guess enough. The tendency of such an age is always +to exaggerate.</q> Two Formosan savages divide five pieces between them by taking two +apiece and throwing one away. The lowest tribes can count only with the fingers of +their hands; when they use their toes as well, it marks an advance in civilization. To +<pb n='229'/><anchor id='Pg229'/> +the modern child a hundred is just as great a number as a million. So the early Scriptures +seem to use numbers with a childlike ignorance as to their meaning. Hundreds +of thousands can be substituted for tens of thousands, and the substitution seems +only a proper tribute to the dignity of the subject. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 353—<q>This +was not conscious perversion, but unconscious idealizing of history, the reading back +into past records of a ritual development which was really later. Inspiration excludes +conscious deception, but it appears to be quite consistent with this sort of idealizing; +always supposing that the result read back into the earlier history does represent the +real purpose of God and only anticipates the realization.</q> +</p> + +<p> +There are some who contend that these historical imperfections are due to transcription +and that they did not belong to the original documents. Watts, New Apologetic, 71, +111, when asked what is gained by contending for infallible original autographs if they +have been since corrupted, replies: <q>Just what we gain by contending for the original +perfection of human nature, though man has since corrupted it. We must believe +God's own testimony about his own work. God may permit others to do what, as a +holy righteous God, he cannot do himself.</q> When the objector declares it a matter of +little consequence whether a pair of trousers were or were not originally perfect, so +long as they are badly rent just now, Watts replies: <q>The tailor who made them +would probably prefer to have it understood that the trousers did not leave his shop in +their present forlorn condition. God drops no stitches and sends out no imperfect +work.</q> Watts however seems dominated by an <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> theory of inspiration, which +blinds him to the actual facts of the Bible. +</p> + +<p> +Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 40—<q>Does the <emph>present</emph> error destroy the +inspiration of the Bible as we have it? No. Then why should the <emph>original</emph> error destroy +the inspiration of the Bible, as it was first given? There are spots on yonder sun; do +they stop its being the sun? Why, the sun is all the more a sun for the spots. So the +Bible.</q> Inspiration seems to have permitted the gathering of such material as was at +hand, very much as a modern editor might construct his account of an army movement +from the reports of a number of observers; or as a modern historian might combine +the records of a past age with all their imperfections of detail. In the case of the +Scripture writers, however, we maintain that inspiration has permitted no sacrifice of +moral and religious truth in the completed Scripture, but has woven its historical +material together into an organic whole which teaches all the facts essential to the +knowledge of Christ and of salvation. +</p> + +<p> +When we come to examine in detail what purport to be historical narratives, we +must be neither credulous nor sceptical, but simply candid and open-minded. With +regard for example to the great age of the Old Testament patriarchs, we are no more +warranted in rejecting the Scripture accounts upon the ground that life in later times +is so much shorter, than we are to reject the testimony of botanists as to trees of the +Sequoia family between four and five hundred feet high, or the testimony of geologists +as to Saurians a hundred feet long, upon the ground that the trees and reptiles +with which we are acquainted are so much smaller. Every species at its introduction +seems to exhibit the maximum of size and vitality. Weismann, Heredity, 6, 30—<q>Whales +live some hundreds of years; elephants two hundred—their gestation taking +two years. Giants prove that the plan upon which man is constructed can also be +carried out on a scale far larger than the normal one.</q> E. Ray Lankester, Adv. of +Science, 205-237, 286—agrees with Weismann in his general theory. Sir George Cornewall +Lewis long denied centenarism, but at last had to admit it. +</p> + +<p> +Charles Dudley Warner, in Harper's Magazine, Jan. 1895, gives instances of men 137, +140, and 192 years old. The German Haller asserts that <q>the ultimate limit of human +life does not exceed two centuries: to fix the exact number of years is exceedingly +difficult.</q> J. Norman Lockyer, in Nature, regards the years of the patriarchs as lunar +years. In Egypt, the sun being used, the unit of time was a year; but in Chaldea, the +unit of time was a month, for the reason that the standard of time was the moon. +Divide the numbers by twelve, and the lives of the patriarchs come out very much the +same length with lives at the present day. We may ask, however, how this theory +would work in shortening the lives between Noah and Moses. On the genealogies in +Matthew and Luke, see Lord Harvey, Genealogies of our Lord, and his art, in Smith's +Bible Dictionary; <hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, see Andrews, Life of Christ, 55 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> On Quirinius and the +enrollment for taxation (<emph>Luke 2:2</emph>), see Pres. Woolsey, in New Englander, 1869. On the +general subject, see Rawlinson, Historical Evidences, and essay in Modern Scepticism, +published by Christian Evidence Society, 1:265; Crooker, New Bible and New Uses, +102-126. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='230'/><anchor id='Pg230'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Errors in Morality.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) What are charged as such are sometimes evil acts and words of good +men—words and acts not sanctioned by God. These are narrated by the +inspired writers as simple matter of history, and subsequent results, or the +story itself, is left to point the moral of the tale. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instances of this sort are Noah's drunkenness (<emph>Gen. 9:20-27</emph>); Lot's incest (<emph>Gen. 19:30-38</emph>); +Jacob's falsehood (<emph>Gen. 27:19-24</emph>); David's adultery (<emph>2 Sam. 11:1-4</emph>); Peter's denial (<emph>Mat. 26:69-75</emph>). +See Lee, Inspiration, 265, note. Esther's vindictiveness is not commended, nor +are the characters of the Book of Esther said to have acted in obedience to a divine +command. Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 241—<q>In law and psalm and prophecy we +behold the influence of Jehovah working as leaven among a primitive and barbarous +people. Contemplating the Old Scriptures in this light, they become luminous with +divinity, and we are furnished with the principle by which to discriminate between the +divine and the human in the book. Particularly in David do we see a rugged, half-civilized, +kingly man, full of gross errors, fleshly and impetuous, yet permeated with a +divine Spirit that lifts him, struggling, weeping, and warring, up to some of the loftiest +conceptions of Deity which the mind of man has conceived. As an angelic being, +David is a caricature; as a man of God, as an example of God moving upon and raising +up a most human man, he is a splendid example. The proof that the church is of God, +is not its impeccability, but its progress.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Where evil acts appear at first sight to be sanctioned, it is frequently +some right intent or accompanying virtue, rather than the act itself, upon +which commendation is bestowed. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As Rehab's faith, not her duplicity (<emph>Josh. 2:1-24</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Heb. 11:31</emph> and <emph>James 2:25</emph>); Jael's +patriotism, not her treachery (<emph>Judges 4:17-22</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>5:24</emph>). Or did they cast in their lot +with Israel and use the common stratagems of war (see next paragraph)? Herder: +<q>The limitations of the pupil are also limitations of the teacher.</q> While Dean Stanley +praises Solomon for tolerating idolatry, James Martineau, Study, 2:137, remarks: <q>It +would be a ridiculous pedantry to apply the Protestant pleas of private judgment to +such communities as ancient Egypt and Assyria.... It is the survival of coercion, +after conscience has been born to supersede it, that shocks and revolts us in persecution.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Certain commands and deeds are sanctioned as relatively just—expressions +of justice such as the age could comprehend, and are to be +judged as parts of a progressively unfolding system of morality whose key +and culmination we have in Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 20:25—<q>I gave them statutes that were not good</q></emph>—as Moses' permission of divorce and +retaliation (<emph>Deut. 24:1</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Mat. 5:31, 32; 19:7-9</emph>; <emph>Ex. 21:24</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Mat. 5:38, 39</emph>). Compare Elijah's +calling down fire from heaven (<emph>2 K. 1:10-12</emph>) with Jesus' refusal to do the same, and +his intimation that the spirit of Elijah was not the spirit of Christ (<emph>Luke 9:52-56</emph>); <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> +Mattheson, Moments on the Mount, 253-255, on <emph>Mat. 17:8—<q>Jesus only</q></emph>: <q>The strength +of Elias paled before him. To shed the blood of enemies requires less strength than to +shed one's own blood, and to conquer by fire is easier than to conquer by love.</q> Hovey: +<q>In divine revelation, it is first starlight, then dawn, finally day.</q> George Washington +once gave directions for the transportation to the West Indies and the sale there of +a refractory negro who had given him trouble. This was not at variance with the +best morality of his time, but it would not suit the improved ethical standards of today. +The use of force rather than moral suasion is sometimes needed by children and +by barbarians. We may illustrate by the Sunday School scholar's unruliness which +was cured by his classmates during the week. <q>What did you say to him?</q> asked the +teacher. <q>We didn't say nothing; we just punched his head for him.</q> This was Old +Testament righteousness. The appeal in the O. T. to the hope of earthly rewards was +suitable to a stage of development not yet instructed as to heaven and hell by the coming +and work of Christ; compare <emph>Ex. 20:12</emph> with <emph>Mat. 5:10; 25:46</emph>. The Old Testament +aimed to fix in the mind of a selected people the idea of the unity and holiness of God; +in order to exterminate idolatry, much other teaching was postponed. See Peabody, +<pb n='231'/><anchor id='Pg231'/> +Religion of Nature, 45; Mozley, Ruling Ideas of Early Ages; Green, in Presb. Quar., +April, 1877:221-252; McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 328-368; Brit. and For. +Evang. Rev., Jan. 1878:1-32; Martineau, Study, 2:137. +</p> + +<p> +When therefore we find in the inspired song of Deborah, the prophetess (<emph>Judges 5:30</emph>), +an allusion to the common spoils of war—<emph><q>a damsel, two damsels to every man</q></emph> or in <emph>Prov. 31:6, +7—<q>Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul. Let him drink, and +forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more</q></emph>—we do not need to maintain that these passages +furnish standards for our modern conduct. Dr. Fisher calls the latter <q>the worst +advice to a person in affliction, or dispirited by the loss of property.</q> They mark past +stages in God's providential leading of mankind. A higher stage indeed is already intimated +in <emph>Prov. 31:4—<q>it is not for kings to drink wine, Nor for princes to say, Where is strong drink?</q></emph> We +see that God could use very imperfect instruments and could inspire very imperfect +men. Many things were permitted for men's <emph><q>hardness of heart</q> (Mat. 19:8)</emph>. The Sermon +on the Mount is a great advance on the law of Moses (<emph>Mat. 5:21—<q>Ye have heard that it was said +to them of old time</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 22—<emph><q>But I say unto you</q></emph>). +</p> + +<p> +Robert G. Ingersoll would have lost his stock in trade if Christians had generally recognized +that revelation is gradual, and is completed only in Christ. This gradualness +of revelation is conceded in the common phrase: <q>the new dispensation.</q> Abraham +Lincoln showed his wisdom by never going far ahead of the common sense of the people. +God similarly adapted his legislation to the capacities of each successive age. The +command to Abraham to sacrifice his son (<emph>Gen. 22:1-19</emph>) was a proper test of Abraham's +faith in a day when human sacrifice violated no common ethical standard because the +Hebrew, like the Roman, <q>patria potestas</q> did not regard the child as having a separate +individuality, but included the child in the parent and made the child equally responsible +for the parent's sin. But that very command was given <emph>only</emph> as a test of faith, and +with the intent to make the intended obedience the occasion of revealing God's provision +of a substitute and so of doing away with human sacrifice for all future time. +We may well imitate the gradualness of divine revelation in our treatment of dancing +and of the liquor traffic. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) God's righteous sovereignty affords the key to other events. He has +the right to do what he will with his own, and to punish the transgressor +when and where he will; and he may justly make men the foretellers or +executors of his purposes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Foretellers, as in the imprecatory Psalms (<emph>137:9</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Is. 13:16-18</emph> and <emph>Jer. 50:16, 29</emph>); +executors, as in the destruction of the Canaanites (<emph>Deut. 7:2, 16</emph>). In the former case the +Psalm was not the ebullition of personal anger, but the expression of judicial indignation +against the enemies of God. We must distinguish the substance from the form. +The substance was the denunciation of God's righteous judgments; the form was +taken from the ordinary customs of war in the Psalmist's time. See Park, in Bib. Sac., +1862:165; Cowles, Com. on Ps. 137; Perowne on Psalms, Introd., 61; Presb. and Ref. +Rev., 1897:490-505; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>2 Tim. 4:14—<q>the Lord will render to him according to his works</q></emph>—a prophecy, +not a curse, ἀποδώσει, not ἀποδώη, as in A. V. In the latter case, an exterminating +war was only the benevolent surgery that amputated the putrid limb, and so saved the +religious life of the Hebrew nation and of the after-world. See Dr. Thomas Arnold, +Essay on the Right Interpretation of Scripture; Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, +11-24. +</p> + +<p> +Another interpretation of these events has been proposed, which would make them +illustrations of the principle indicated in (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) above: E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, +45—<q>It was not the imprecations of the Psalm that were inspired of God, but his +purposes and ideas of which these were by the times the necessary vehicle; just as the +adultery of David was not by divine command, though through it the purpose of God +as to Christ's descent was accomplished.</q> John Watson (Ian Maclaren), Cure of Souls, +143—<q>When the massacre of the Canaanites and certain proceedings of David are flung +in the face of Christians, it is no longer necessary to fall back on evasions or special +pleading. It can now be frankly admitted that, from our standpoint in this year of +grace, such deeds were atrocious, and that they never could have been according to the +mind of God, but that they must be judged by their date, and considered the defects of +elementary moral processes. The Bible is vindicated, because it is, on the whole, a +steady ascent, and because it culminates in Christ.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Lyman Abbott, Theology of an Evolutionist, 56—<q>Abraham mistook the voice of +conscience, calling on him to consecrate his only son to God, and interpreted it as a +<pb n='232'/><anchor id='Pg232'/> +command to slay his son as a burnt offering. Israel misinterpreted his righteous indignation +at the cruel and lustful rites of the Canaanitish religion as a divine summons to +destroy the worship by putting the worshipers to death; a people undeveloped in moral +judgment could not distinguish between formal regulations respecting camp-life and +eternal principles of righteousness, such as, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, +but embodied them in the same code, and seemed to regard them as of equal authority.</q> +Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 281—<q>If so be such man, so placed ... did in some part +That utterance make his own, profaning it, To be his vehicle for sense not meant By +the august supreme inspiring Will</q>—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, putting some of his own sinful anger into +God's calm predictions of judgment. Compare the stern last words of <emph><q>Zechariah, the son of +Jehoiada, the priest</q></emph> when stoned to death in the temple court: <emph><q>Jehovah look upon it and require it</q> +(2 Chron. 24:20-22)</emph>, with the last words of Jesus: <emph><q>Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do</q> +(Luke 23:34)</emph> and of Stephen: <emph><q>Lord, lay not this sin to their charge</q> (Acts 7:60)</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Other apparent immoralities are due to unwarranted interpretations. +Symbol is sometimes taken for literal fact; the language of irony is understood +as sober affirmation; the glow and freedom of Oriental description +are judged by the unimpassioned style of Western literature; appeal to +lower motives is taken to exclude, instead of preparing for, the higher. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Hosea 1:2, 3</emph>, the command to the prophet to marry a harlot was probably received +and executed in vision, and was intended only as symbolic: compare <emph>Jer. 25:15-18—<q>Take +this cup ... and cause all the nations ... to drink.</q></emph> Literal obedience would have made the +prophet contemptible to those whom he would instruct, and would require so long a +time as to weaken, if not destroy, the designed effect; see Ann. Par. Bible, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. In +<emph>2 K. 6:19</emph>, Elisha's deception, so called, was probably only ironical and benevolent; the +enemy dared not resist, because they were completely in his power. In the <emph>Song of Solomon</emph>, +we have, as Jewish writers have always held, a highly-wrought dramatic description of +the union between Jehovah and his people, which we must judge by Eastern and not by +Western literary standards. +</p> + +<p> +Francis W. Newman, in his Phases of Faith, accused even the New Testament of +presenting low motives for human obedience. It is true that all right motives are +appealed to, and some of these motives are of a higher sort than are others. Hope of +heaven and fear of hell are not the highest motives, but they may be employed as +preliminary incitements to action, even though only love for God and for holiness will +ensure salvation. Such motives are urged both by Christ and by his apostles: <emph>Mat. 6:20—<q>lay +up for yourselves treasures in heaven</q></emph>; <emph>10:28—<q>fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell</q></emph>; +<emph>Jude 23—<q>some save with fear, snatching them out of the fire.</q></emph> In this respect the N. T. does not +differ from the O. T. George Adam Smith has pointed out that the royalists got their +texts, <emph><q>the powers that be</q> (Rom. 13:1)</emph> and <emph><q>the king as supreme</q> (1 Pet. 2:13)</emph>, from the N. T., +while the O. T. furnished texts for the defenders of liberty. While the O. T. deals with +<emph>national</emph> life, and the discharge of social and political functions, the N. T. deals in the +main with <emph>individuals</emph> and with their relations to God. On the whole subject, see +Hessey, Moral Difficulties of the Bible; Jellett, Moral Difficulties of the O. T.; Faith +and Free Thought (Lect. by Christ. Ev. Soc.), 2:173; Rogers, Eclipse of Faith; Butler, +Analogy, part ii, chap. iii; Orr, Problem of the O. T., 465-483. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>4. Errors of Reasoning.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) What are charged as such are generally to be explained as valid +argument expressed in highly condensed form. The appearance of error +may be due to the suppression of one or more links in the reasoning. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Mat. 22:32</emph>, Christ's argument for the resurrection, drawn from the fact that God is +the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is perfectly and obviously valid, the moment +we put in the suppressed premise that the living relation to God which is here implied +cannot properly be conceived as something merely spiritual, but necessarily requires a +new and restored life of the body. If God is the God of the living, then Abraham, +Isaac, and Jacob shall rise from the dead. See more full exposition, under Eschatology. +Some of the Scripture arguments are enthymemes, and an enthymeme, according to +Arbuthnot and Pope, is <q>a syllogism in which the major is married to the minnor, and +the marriage is kept secret.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='233'/><anchor id='Pg233'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Where we cannot see the propriety of the conclusions drawn from +given premises, there is greater reason to attribute our failure to ignorance +of divine logic on our part, than to accommodation or <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ad hominem</foreign> arguments +on the part of the Scripture writers. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +By divine logic we mean simply a logic whose elements and processes are correct, +though not understood by us. In <emph>Heb. 7:9, 10</emph> (Levi's paying tithes in Abraham), there is +probably a recognition of the organic unity of the family, which in miniature illustrates +the organic unity of the race. In <emph>Gal. 3:20—<q>a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is +one</q></emph>—the law, with its two contracting parties, is contrasted with the promise, which +proceeds from the sole fiat of God and is therefore unchangeable. Paul's argument +here rests on Christ's divinity as its foundation—otherwise Christ would have been a +mediator in the same sense in which Moses was a mediator (see Lightfoot, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). In +<emph>Gal. 4:21-31</emph>, Hagar and Ishmael on the one hand, and Sarah and Isaac on the other, illustrate +the exclusion of the bondmen of the law from the privileges of the spiritual seed +of Abraham. Abraham's two wives, and the two classes of people in the two sons, +represent the two covenants (so Calvin). In <emph>John 10:34—<q>I said, Ye are gods,</q></emph> the implication +is that Judaism was not a system of mere monotheism, but of theism tending to +theanthropism, a real union of God and man (Westcott, Bib. Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). Godet +well remarks that he who doubts Paul's logic will do well first to suspect his own. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The adoption of Jewish methods of reasoning, where it could be +proved, would not indicate error on the part of the Scripture writers, but +rather an inspired sanction of the method as applied to that particular case. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Gal. 3:16—<q>He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.</q></emph> Here +it is intimated that the very form of the expression in <emph>Gen. 22:18</emph>, which denotes unity, +was selected by the Holy Spirit as significant of that one person, Christ, who was the +true seed of Abraham and in whom all nations were to be blessed. Argument from the +form of a single word is in this case correct, although the Rabbins often made more of +single words than the Holy Spirit ever intended. Watts, New Apologetic, 69—<q>F. W. +Farrar asserts that the plural of the Hebrew or Greek terms for <q>seed</q> is never used +by Hebrew or Greek writers as a designation of human offspring. But see Sophocles, +Œdipus at Colonus, 599, 600—γῆς ἔμῆς ἀπηλάθην πρὸς τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ σπερμάτων—<q>I was driven +away from my own country by my own offspring.</q></q> In <emph>1 Cor. 10:1-6—<q>and the rock was Christ</q></emph>—the +Rabbinic tradition that the smitten rock followed the Israelites in their wanderings +is declared to be only the absurd literalizing of a spiritual fact—the continual +presence of Christ, as preëxistent Logos, with his ancient people. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Row, +Rev. and Mod. Theories, 98-128. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) If it should appear however upon further investigation that Rabbinical +methods have been wrongly employed by the apostles in their argumentation, +we might still distinguish between the truth they are seeking +to convey and the arguments by which they support it. Inspiration may +conceivably make known the truth, yet leave the expression of the truth to +human dialectic as well as to human rhetoric. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Johnson, Quotations of the N. T. from the O. T., 137, 138—<q>In the utter absence of +all evidence to the contrary, we ought to suppose that the allegories of the N. T. are +like the allegories of literature in general, merely luminous embodiments of the truth.... +If these allegories are not presented by their writers as evidences, they are none +the less precious, since they illuminate the truth otherwise evinced, and thus render it +at once clear to the apprehension and attractive to the taste.</q> If however the purpose +of the writers was to use these allegories for proof, we may still see shining +through the rifts of their traditional logic the truth which they were striving to set +forth. Inspiration may have put them in possession of this truth without altering their +ordinary scholastic methods of demonstration and expression. Horton, Inspiration, +108—<q>Discrepancies and illogical reasonings were but inequalities or cracks in the +mirrors, which did not materially distort or hide the Person</q> whose glory they sought +to reflect. Luther went even further than this when he said that a certain argument +in the epistle was <q>good enough for the Galatians.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='234'/><anchor id='Pg234'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>5. Errors in quoting or interpreting the Old Testament.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) What are charged as such are commonly interpretations of the +meaning of the original Scripture by the same Spirit who first inspired it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Eph. 5:14, <q>arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee</q></emph> is an inspired interpretation of +<emph>Is. 60:1—<q>Arise, shine; for thy light is come.</q></emph> <emph>Ps. 68:18—<q>Thou hast received gifts among men</q></emph>—is quoted +in <emph>Eph. 4:8</emph> as <emph><q>gave gifts to men.</q></emph> The words in Hebrew are probably a concise expression +for <q>thou hast taken spoil which thou mayest distribute as gifts to men.</q> <emph>Eph. 4:8</emph> +agrees exactly with the sense, though not with the words, of the Psalm. In <emph>Heb. 11:21, +<q>Jacob ... worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff</q></emph> (LXX); <emph>Gen. 47:31</emph> has <emph><q>bowed himself upon the +bed's head.</q></emph> The meaning is the same, for the staff of the chief and the spear of the warrior +were set at the bed's head. Jacob, too feeble to rise, prayed in his bed. Here Calvin +says that <q>the apostle does not hesitate to accommodate to his own purpose what +was commonly received,—they were not so scrupulous</q> as to details. Even Gordon, +Ministry of the Spirit, 177, speaks of <q>a reshaping of his own words by the Author of +them.</q> We prefer, with Calvin, to see in these quotations evidence that the sacred +writers were insistent upon the substance of the truth rather than upon the form, the +spirit rather than the letter. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Where an apparently false translation is quoted from the Septuagint, +the sanction of inspiration is given to it, as expressing a part at least of the +fulness of meaning contained in the divine original—a fulness of meaning +which two varying translations do not in some cases exhaust. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 4:4</emph>—Heb.: <emph><q>Tremble, and sin not</q></emph> (= no longer); LXX: <emph><q>Be ye angry, and sin not.</q> Eph. 4:26</emph> +quotes the LXX. The words may originally have been addressed to David's comrades, +exhorting them to keep their anger within bounds. Both translations together are +needed to bring out the meaning of the original. <emph>Ps. 40:6-8—<q>Mine ears hast thou opened</q></emph> is +translated in <emph>Heb. 10:5-7—<q>a body didst thou prepare for me.</q></emph> Here the Epistle quotes from the +LXX. But the Hebrew means literally: <emph><q>Mine ears hast thou bored</q></emph>—an allusion to the custom +of pinning a slave to the doorpost of his master by an awl driven through his ear, +in token of his complete subjection. The sense of the verse is therefore given in the +Epistle: <q>Thou hast made me thine in body and soul—lo, I come to do thy will.</q> +A. C. Kendrick: <q>David, just entering upon his kingdom after persecution, is a type of +Christ entering on his earthly mission. Hence David's words are put into the mouth +of Christ. For <q>ears,</q> the organs with which we hear and obey and which David conceived +to be hollowed out for him by God, the author of the Hebrews substitutes the +word <emph><q>body,</q></emph> as the <emph>general</emph> instrument of doing God's will</q> (Com. on <emph>Heb. 10:5-7</emph>). +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The freedom of these inspired interpretations, however, does not +warrant us in like freedom of interpretation in the case of other passages +whose meaning has not been authoritatively made known. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We have no reason to believe that the scarlet thread of Rahab (<emph>Josh. 2:18</emph>) was a +designed prefiguration of the blood of Christ, nor that the three measures of meal in +which the woman hid her leaven (<emph>Mat. 13:33</emph>) symbolized Shem, Ham and Japheth, the +three divisions of the human race. C. H. M., in his notes on the tabernacle in Exodus, +tells us that <q>the loops of blue = heavenly grace; the taches of gold = the divine +energy of Christ; the rams' skins dyed red = Christ's consecration and devotedness; +the badgers' skins = his holy vigilance against temptation</q>! The tabernacle was +indeed a type of Christ (<emph>John 1:14</emph>—ἐσκήνωσεν. <emph>2:19, 21—<q>in three days I will raise it up ... but +he spake of the temple of his body</q></emph>); yet it does not follow that every detail of the structure +was significant. So each parable teaches some one main lesson,—the particulars may +be mere drapery; and while we may use the parables for illustration, we should never +ascribe divine authority to our private impressions of their meaning. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 25:1-13</emph>—the parable of the five wise and the five foolish virgins—has been made +to teach that the number of the saved precisely equals the number of the lost. Augustine +defended persecution from the words in <emph>Luke 14:23—<q>constrain them to come in.</q></emph> The +Inquisition was justified by <emph>Mat. 13:30—<q>bind them in bundles to burn them.</q></emph> Innocent III +denied the Scriptures to the laity, quoting <emph>Heb. 12:20—<q>If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall +be stoned.</q></emph> A Plymouth Brother held that he would be safe on an evangelizing journey +because he read in <emph>John 19:36—<q>A bone of him shall not be broken.</q></emph> <emph>Mat. 17:8—<q>they saw no one, save Jesus +<pb n='235'/><anchor id='Pg235'/> +only</q></emph>—has been held to mean that we should trust only Jesus. The Epistle of Barnabas +discovered in Abraham's 318 servants a prediction of the crucified Jesus, and others +have seen in Abraham's three days' journey to Mount Moriah the three stages in the +development of the soul. Clement of Alexandria finds the four natural elements in +the four colors of the Jewish Tabernacle. All this is to make a parable <q>run on all +fours.</q> While we call a hero a lion, we do not need to find in the man something to +correspond to the lion's mane and claws. See Toy, Quotations in the N. T.; Franklin +Johnson, Quotations of the N. T. from the O. T.; Crooker, The New Bible and its New +Uses, 126-136. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) While we do not grant that the New Testament writers in any +proper sense misquoted or misinterpreted the Old Testament, we do not +regard absolute correctness in these respects as essential to their inspiration. +The inspiring Spirit may have communicated truth, and may have +secured in the Scriptures as a whole a record of that truth sufficient for +men's moral and religious needs, without imparting perfect gifts of scholarship +or exegesis. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In answer to Toy, Quotations in the N. T., who takes a generally unfavorable +view of the correctness of the N. T. writers, Johnson, Quotations of the N. T. from the +O. T., maintains their correctness. On pages x, xi, of his Introduction, Johnson +remarks: <q>I think it just to regard the writers of the Bible as the creators of a great +literature, and to judge and interpret them by the laws of literature. They have produced +all the chief forms of literature, as history, biography, anecdote, proverb, oratory, +allegory, poetry, fiction. They have needed therefore all the resources of human +speech, its sobriety and scientific precision on one page, its rainbow hues of fancy and +imagination on another, its fires of passion on yet another. They could not have +moved and guided men in the best manner had they denied themselves the utmost +force and freedom of language; had they refused to employ its wide range of expressions, +whether exact or poetic; had they not borrowed without stint its many forms +of reason, of terror, of rapture, of hope, of joy, of peace. So also, they have needed the +usual freedom of literary allusion and citation, in order to commend the gospel to the +judgment, the tastes, and the feelings of their readers.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>6. Errors in Prophecy.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) What are charged as such may frequently be explained by remembering +that much of prophecy is yet unfulfilled. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is sometimes taken for granted that the book of Revelation, for example, refers +entirely to events already past. Moses Stuart, in his Commentary, and Warren's Parousia, +represent this preterist interpretation. Thus judged, however, many of the predictions +of the book might seem to have failed. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The personal surmises of the prophets as to the meaning of the +prophecies they recorded may have been incorrect, while yet the prophecies +themselves are inspired. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>1 Pet. 1:10, 11</emph>, the apostle declares that the prophets searched <emph><q>what time or what manner +of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and +the glories that should follow them.</q></emph> So Paul, although he does not announce it as certain, +seems to have had some hope that he might live to witness Christ's second coming. +See <emph>2 Cor. 5:4—<q>not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon</q></emph> (ἐπενδύσασθαι—put +on the spiritual body, as over the present one, without the intervention of death); +<emph>1 Thess. 4:15, 17—<q>we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord.</q></emph> So <emph>Mat. 2:15</emph> quotes from +<emph>Hosea 11:1—<q>Out of Egypt did I call my son,</q></emph> and applies the prophecy to Christ, although Hosea +was doubtless thinking only of the exodus of the people of Israel. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The prophet's earlier utterances are not to be severed from the later +utterances which elucidate them, nor from the whole revelation of which +they form a part. It is unjust to forbid the prophet to explain his own +meaning. +</p> + +<pb n='236'/><anchor id='Pg236'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>2 Thessalonians</emph> was written expressly to correct wrong inferences as to the apostle's teaching +drawn from his peculiar mode of speaking in the first epistle. In <emph>2 Thess. 2:2-5</emph> he +removes the impression <emph><q>that the day of the Lord is now present</q></emph> or <emph><q>just at hand</q></emph>; declares that <emph><q>it +will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed</q></emph>; reminds the Thessalonians: +<emph><q>when I was yet with you, I told you these things.</q></emph> Yet still, in <emph>verse 1</emph>, he speaks of <emph><q>the coming of our +Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +These passages, taken together, show: (1) that the two epistles are one in their teaching; +(2) that in neither epistle is there any prediction of the immediate coming of the +Lord; (3) that in the second epistle great events are foretold as intervening before +that coming; (4) that while Paul never taught that Christ would come during his own +lifetime, he hoped at least during the earlier part of his life that it might be so—a hope +that seems to have been dissipated in his later years. (See <emph>2 Tim. 4:6—<q>I am already being offered, +and the time of my departure is come.</q></emph>) We must remember, however, that there was a <emph><q>coming +of the Lord</q></emph> in the destruction of Jerusalem within three or four years of Paul's death. +Henry Van Dyke: <q>The point of Paul's teaching in <emph>1</emph> and <emph>2 Thess.</emph> is not that Christ is +coming to-morrow, but that he is surely coming.</q> The absence of perspective in +prophecy may explain Paul's not at first defining the precise time of the end, and so +leaving it to be misunderstood. +</p> + +<p> +The second Epistle to the Thessalonians, therefore, only makes more plain the meaning +of the first, and adds new items of prediction. It is important to recognize in Paul's +epistles a progress in prophecy, in doctrine, in church polity. The full statement of the +truth was gradually drawn out, under the influence of the Spirit, upon occasion of +successive outward demands and inward experiences. Much is to be learned by studying +the chronological order of Paul's epistles, as well as of the other N. T. books. For +evidence of similar progress in the epistles of Peter, compare <emph>1 Pet. 4:7</emph> with <emph>2 Pet. 3:4</emph> <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The character of prophecy as a rough general sketch of the future, +in highly figurative language, and without historical perspective, renders +it peculiarly probable that what at first sight seem to be errors are due +to a misinterpretation on our part, which confounds the drapery with the +substance, or applies its language to events to which it had no reference. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>James 5:9</emph> and <emph>Phil. 4:5</emph> are instances of that large prophetic speech which regards the +distant future as near at hand, because so certain to the faith and hope of the church. +Sanday, Inspiration, 376-378—<q>No doubt the Christians of the Apostolic age did live in +immediate expectation of the Second Coming, and that expectation culminated at the +crisis in which the Apocalypse was written. In the Apocalypse, as in every predictive +prophecy, there is a double element, one part derived from the circumstances of the +present and another pointing forwards to the future.... All these things, in an +exact and literal sense have fallen through with the postponement of that great event +in which they centre. From the first they were but meant as the imaginative pictorial +and symbolical clothing of that event. What measure of real fulfilment the Apocalypse +may yet be destined to receive we cannot tell. But in predictive prophecy, +even when most closely verified, the essence lies less in the prediction than in the eternal +laws of moral and religious truth which the fact predicted reveals or exemplifies.</q> +Thus we recognize both the divinity and the freedom of prophecy, and reject the +rationalistic theory which would relate the fall of the Beaconsfield government in +Matthew's way: <q>That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Cromwell, saying: +<q>Get you gone, and make room for honest men!</q></q> See the more full statement of the +nature of prophecy, on pages 132-141. Also Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the N. T. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>7. Certain books unworthy of a place in inspired Scripture.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) This charge may be shown, in each single case, to rest upon a misapprehension +of the aim and method of the book, and its connection with +the remainder of the Bible, together with a narrowness of nature or of +doctrinal view, which prevents the critic from appreciating the wants of the +peculiar class of men to which the book is especially serviceable. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Luther called <emph>James</emph> <q>a right strawy epistle.</q> His constant pondering of the doctrine +of justification by faith alone made it difficult for him to grasp the complementary +truth that we are justified only by such faith as brings forth good works, or to perceive +<pb n='237'/><anchor id='Pg237'/> +the essential agreement of James and Paul. Prof. R. E. Thompson, in S. S. Times, +Dec. 3,1898:803, 804—<q>Luther refused canonical authority to books not actually written +by apostles or composed (as Mark and Luke) under their direction. So he rejected +from the rank of canonical authority Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, Revelation. +Even Calvin doubted the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, excluded the book of Revelation +from the Scripture on which he wrote Commentaries, and also thus ignored 2 and 3 +John.</q> G. P. Fisher in S. S. Times, Aug. 29, 1891—<q>Luther, in his preface to the N. T. +(Edition of 1522), gives a list of what he considers as the principal books of the N. T. +These are John's Gospel and First Epistle, Paul's Epistles, especially Romans and Galatians, +and Peter's First Epistle. Then he adds that <q>St. James' Epistle is a right +strawy Epistle <emph>compared with them</emph></q>—<q><foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>ein recht strohern Epistel gegen sie,</foreign></q> thus characterizing +it not absolutely but only relatively.</q> Zwingle even said of the Apocalypse: +<q>It is not a Biblical book.</q> So Thomas Arnold, with his exaggerated love for historical +accuracy and definite outline, found the Oriental imagery and sweeping visions of the +book of Revelation so bizarre and distasteful that he doubted their divine authority. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The testimony of church history and general Christian experience +to the profitableness and divinity of the disputed books is of greater weight +than the personal impressions of the few who criticize them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Instance the testimonies of the ages of persecution to the worth of the prophecies, +which assure God's people that his cause shall surely triumph. Denney, Studies in Theology, +226—<q>It is at least as likely that the individual should be insensible to the divine +message in a book, as that the church should have judged it to contain such a message +if it did not do so.</q> Milton, Areopagitica: <q>The Bible brings in holiest men passionately +murmuring against Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus.</q> Bruce, +Apologetics, 329—<q>O. T. religion was querulous, vindictive, philolevitical, hostile +toward foreigners, morbidly self-conscious, and tending to self-righteousness. Ecclesiastes +shows us how we ought <emph>not</emph> to feel. To go about crying <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Vanitas!</foreign> is to miss the +lesson it was meant to teach, namely, that the Old Covenant was vanity—proved to be +vanity by allowing a son of the Covenant to get into so despairing a mood.</q> Chadwick +says that Ecclesiastes got into the Canon only after it had received an orthodox postscript. +</p> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:193—<q>Slavish fear and self-righteous reckoning with +God are the unlovely features of this Jewish religion of law to which the ethical idealism +of the prophets had degenerated, and these traits strike us most visibly in Pharsiaism.... +It was this side of the O. T. religion to which Christianity took a critical and +destroying attitude, while it revealed a new and higher knowledge of God. For, says +Paul, <emph><q>ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption</q> (Rom. 8:15)</emph>. +In unity with God man does not lose his soul but preserves it. God not only commands +but gives.</q> Ian Maclaren (John Watson), Cure of Souls, 144—<q>When the book of +Ecclesiastes is referred to the days of the third century B. C., then its note is caught, +and any man who has been wronged and embittered by political tyranny and social +corruption has his bitter cry included in the book of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Such testimony can be adduced in favor of the value of each one of +the books to which exception is taken, such as Esther, Job, Song of Solomon, +Ecclesiastes, Jonah, James, Revelation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Esther is the book, next to the Pentateuch, held in highest reverence by the Jews. +<q>Job was the discoverer of infinity, and the first to see the bearing of infinity on +righteousness. It was the return of religion to nature. Job heard the voice beyond +the Sinai-voice</q> (Shadow-Cross, 89). Inge, Christian Mysticism, 43—<q>As to the Song +of Solomon, its influence upon Christian Mysticism has been simply deplorable. A +graceful romance in honor of true love has been distorted into a precedent and sanction +for giving way to hysterical emotions in which sexual imagery has been freely +used to symbolize the relation between the soul and its Lord.</q> Chadwick says that +the Song of Solomon got into the Canon only after it had received an allegorical interpretation. +Gladden, Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 165, thinks it impossible that <q>the +addition of one more inmate to the harem of that royal rake, King Solomon, should +have been made the type of the spiritual affection between Christ and his church. +Instead of this, the book is a glorification of pure love. The Shulamite, transported to +the court of Solomon, remains faithful to her shepherd lover, and is restored to him.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='238'/><anchor id='Pg238'/> + +<p> +Bruce, Apologetics, 321—<q>The Song of Solomon, literally interpreted as a story of +true love, proof against the blandishments of the royal harem, is rightfully in the +Canon as a buttress to the true religion; for whatever made for purity in the relations +of the sexes made for the worship of Jehovah—Baal worship and impurity being +closely associated.</q> Rutherford, McCheyne, and Spurgeon have taken more texts +from the Song of Solomon than from any other portion of Scripture of like extent. +Charles G. Finney, Autobiography, 378—<q>At this time it seemed as if my soul was +wedded to Christ in a sense which I never had any thought or conception of before. +The language of the Song of Solomon was as natural to me as my breath. I thought I +could understand well the state he was in when he wrote that Song, and concluded then, +as I have ever thought since, that that Song was written by him after he had been +reclaimed from his great backsliding. I not only had all the fulness of my first love, +but a vast accession to it. Indeed, the Lord lifted me up so much above anything that +I had experienced before, and taught me so much of the meaning of the Bible, of +Christ's relations and power and willingness, that I found myself saying to him: I had +not known or conceived that any such thing was true.</q> On Jonah, see R. W. Dale, in +Expositor, July, 1892, advocating the non-historical and allegorical character of the +book. Bib. Sac., 10:737-764—<q>Jonah represents the nation of Israel as emerging +through a miracle from the exile, in order to carry out its mission to the world at +large. It teaches that God is the God of the whole earth; that the Ninevites as well as +the Israelites are dear to him; that his threatenings of penalty are conditional.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>8. Portions of the Scripture books written by others than the persons +to whom they are ascribed.</head> + +<p> +The objection rests upon a misunderstanding of the nature and object of +inspiration. It may be removed by considering that +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In the case of books made up from preëxisting documents, inspiration +simply preserved the compilers of them from selecting inadequate or +improper material. The fact of such compilation does not impugn their +value as records of a divine revelation, since these books supplement each +other's deficiencies and together are sufficient for man's religious needs. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Luke distinctly informs us that he secured the materials for his gospel from the +reports of others who were eye-witnesses of the events he recorded (<emph>Luke 1:1-4</emph>). The +book of Genesis bears marks of having incorporated documents of earlier times. The +account of creation which begins with <emph>Gen. 2:4</emph> is evidently written by a different hand +from that which penned <emph>1:1-31</emph> and <emph>2:1-3</emph>. Instances of the same sort may be found in +the books of Chronicles. In like manner, Marshall's Life of Washington incorporates +documents by other writers. By thus incorporating them, Marshall vouches for their +truth. See Bible Com., 1:2, 22. +</p> + +<p> +Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theology, 1:243—<q>Luther ascribes to faith critical authority with +reference to the Canon. He denies the canonicity of James, without regarding it as +spurious. So of Hebrews and Revelation, though later, in 1545, he passed a more favorable +judgment upon the latter. He even says of a proof adduced by Paul in Galatians +that it is too weak to hold. He allows that in external matters not only Stephen but +even the sacred authors contain inaccuracies. The authority of the O. T. does not seem +to him invalidated by the admission that several of its writings have passed through +revising hands. What would it matter, he asks, if Moses did not write the Pentateuch? +The prophets studied Moses and one another. If they built in much wood, hay and +stubble along with the rest, still the foundation abides; the fire of the great day shall +consume the former; for in this manner do we treat the writings of Augustine and +others. Kings is far more to be believed than Chronicles. Ecclesiastes is forged and +cannot come from Solomon. Esther is not canonical. The church may have erred in +adopting a book into the Canon. Faith first requires proof. Hence he ejects the Apocryphal +books of the O. T. from the Canon. So some parts of the N. T. receive only a +secondary, deuterocanonical position. There is a difference between the word of God +and the holy Scriptures, not merely in reference to the form, but also in reference to +the subject matter.</q> +</p> + +<p> +H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 94—<q>The Editor of the Minor Prophets +united in one roll the prophetic fragments which were in circulation in his time. +<pb n='239'/><anchor id='Pg239'/> +Finding a fragment without an author's name he inserted it in the series. It would not +have been distinguished from the work of the author immediately preceding. So <emph>Zech. +9:1-4</emph> came to go under the name of Zechariah, and <emph>Is. 40-66</emph> under the name of Isaiah. +Reuss called these <q>anatomical studies.</q></q> On the authorship of the book of Daniel, see +W. C. Wilkinson, in Homiletical Review, March, 1902:208, and Oct. 1902:305; on Paul, +see Hom. Rev., June, 1902:501; on 110th Psalm, Hom. Rev., April, 1902:309. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) In the case of additions to Scripture books by later writers, it is +reasonable to suppose that the additions, as well as the originals, were made +by inspiration, and no essential truth is sacrificed by allowing the whole to +go under the name of the chief author. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mark 16:9-20</emph> appears to have been added by a later hand (see English Revised Version). +The Eng. Rev. Vers. also brackets or segregates a part of <emph>verse 3</emph> and the whole of <emph>verse 4</emph> in +<emph>John 5</emph> (the moving of the water by the angel), and the whole passage <emph>John 7:53-8:11</emph> (the +woman taken in adultery). Westcott and Hort regard the latter passage as an interpolation, +probably <q>Western</q> in its origin (so also <emph>Mark 16:9-20</emph>). Others regard it as authentic, +though not written by John. The closing chapter of Deuteronomy was apparently +added after Moses' death—perhaps by Joshua. If criticism should prove other +portions of the Pentateuch to have been composed after Moses' time, the inspiration +of the Pentateuch would not be invalidated, so long as Moses was its chief author +or even the original source and founder of its legislation (<emph>John 5:46—<q>he wrote of me</q></emph>). +Gore, in Lux Mundi, 355—<q>Deuteronomy may be a republication of the law, in the +spirit and power of Moses, and put dramatically into his mouth.</q> +</p> + +<p> +At a spot near the Pool of Siloam, Manasseh is said to have ordered that Isaiah should +be sawn asunder with a wooden saw. The prophet is again sawn asunder by the recent +criticism. But his prophecy opens (<emph>Is. 1:1</emph>) with the statement that it was composed +during a period which covered the reigns of four kings—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and +Hezekiah—nearly forty years. In so long a time the style of a writer greatly changes. +<emph>Chapters 40-66</emph> may have been written in Isaiah's later age, after he had retired from public +life. Compare the change in the style of Zechariah, John and Paul, with that in +Thomas Carlyle and George William Curtis. On Isaiah, see Smyth, Prophecy a Preparation +for Christ; Bib. Sac., Apr. 1881:230-253; also July, 1881; Stanley, Jewish Ch., 2:646, +647; Nägelsbach, Int. to Lange's Isaiah. +</p> + +<p> +For the view that there were two Isaiahs, see George Adam Smith, Com. on Isaiah, +2:1-25: Isaiah flourished B. C. 740-700. The last 27 chapters deal with the captivity +(598-538) and with Cyrus (550), whom they name. The book is not one continuous +prophecy, but a number of separate orations. Some of these claim to be Isaiah's own, +and have titles, such as <emph><q>The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos</q> (1:1)</emph>; <emph><q>The word that Isaiah the son of Amos +saw</q> (2:1)</emph>. But such titles describe only the individual prophecies they head. Other +portions of the book, on other subjects and in different styles, have no titles at all. +Chapters <emph>40-66</emph> do not claim to be his. There are nine citations in the N. T. from the disputed +chapters, but none by our Lord. None of these citations were given in answer +to the question: Did Isaiah write chapters <emph>44-66</emph>? Isaiah's name is mentioned only for the +sake of reference. Chapters <emph>44-66</emph> set forth the exile and captivity as already having +taken place. Israel is addressed as ready for deliverance. Cyrus is named as deliverer. +There is no grammar of the future like Jeremiah's. Cyrus is pointed out as proof that +<emph>former</emph> prophecies of deliverance are at last coming to pass. He is not presented as a +prediction, but as a proof that prediction is being fulfilled. The prophet could not +have referred the heathen to Cyrus as proof that prophecy had been fulfilled, had he +not been visible to them in all his weight of war. Babylon has still to fall before the +exiles can go free. But chapters <emph>40-66</emph> speak of the coming of Cyrus as past, and of the +fall of Babylon as yet to come. Why not use the prophetic perfect of both, if both +were yet future? Local color, language and thought are all consistent with exilic +authorship. All suits the exile, but all is foreign to the subjects and methods of Isaiah, +for example, the use of the terms <emph>righteous</emph> and <emph>righteousness</emph>. Calvin admits exilic +authorship (on <emph>Is. 55:3</emph>). The passage <emph>56:9-57</emph>, however, is an exception and is preëxilic. +<emph>40-48</emph> are certainly by one hand, and may be dated 555-538. 2nd Isaiah is not a unity, +but consists of a number of pieces written before, during, and after the exile, to comfort +the people of God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='240'/><anchor id='Pg240'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It is unjust to deny to inspired Scripture the right exercised by +all historians of introducing certain documents and sayings as simply historical, +while their complete truthfulness is neither vouched for nor denied. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +An instance in point is the letter of Claudius Lysias in <emph>Acts 23:26-30</emph>—a letter which represents +his conduct in a more favorable light than the facts would justify—for he had +not learned that Paul was a Roman when he rescued him in the temple (<emph>Acts 21:31-33; 22:26-29</emph>). +An incorrect statement may be correctly reported. A set of pamphlets printed in +the time of the French Revolution might be made an appendix to some history of +France without implying that the historian vouched for their truth. The sacred historians +may similarly have been inspired to use only the material within their reach, +leaving their readers by comparison with other Scriptures to judge of its truthfulness +and value. This seems to have been the method adopted by the compiler of <emph>1</emph> and <emph>2 +Chronicles</emph>. The moral and religious lessons of the history are patent, even though there +is inaccuracy in reporting some of the facts. So the assertions of the authors of the +Psalms cannot be taken for absolute truth. The authors were not sinless models for the +Christian,—only Christ is that. But the Psalms present us with a record of the actual +experience of believers in the past. It has its human weakness, but we can profit by +it, even though it expresses itself at times in imprecations. <emph>Jeremiah 20:7—<q>O lord, thou +hast deceived me</q></emph>—may possibly be thus explained. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>9. Sceptical or fictitious Narratives.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Descriptions of human experience may be embraced in Scripture, +not as models for imitation, but as illustrations of the doubts, struggles, and +needs of the soul. In these cases inspiration may vouch, not for the correctness +of the views expressed by those who thus describe their mental +history, but only for the correspondence of the description with actual fact, +and for its usefulness as indirectly teaching important moral lessons. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The book of Ecclesiastes, for example, is the record of the mental struggles of a soul +seeking satisfaction without God. If written by Solomon during the time of his religious +declension, or near the close of it, it would constitute a most valuable commentary +upon the inspired history. Yet it might be equally valuable, though composed by some +later writer under divine direction and inspiration. H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and +Inspiration, 97—<q>To suppose Solomon the author of Ecclesiastes is like supposing +Spenser to have written In Memoriam.</q> Luther, Keil, Delitzsch, Ginsburg, Hengstenberg +all declare it to be a production of later times (330 B. C.). The book shows experience +of misgovernment. An earlier writer cannot write in the style of a later one, +though the later can imitate the earlier. The early Latin and Greek Fathers quoted +the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon as by Solomon; see Plumptre, Introd. to Ecclesiastes, +in Cambridge Bible. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 355—<q>Ecclesiastes, though like the +book of Wisdom purporting to be by Solomon, may be by another author.... <q>A +pious fraud</q> cannot be inspired; an idealizing personification, as a normal type of literature, +can be inspired.</q> Yet Bernhard Schäfer, Das Buch Koheleth, ably maintains +the Solomonic authorship. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Moral truth may be put by Scripture writers into parabolic or dramatic +form, and the sayings of Satan and of perverse men may form parts +of such a production. In such cases, inspiration may vouch, not for the +historical truth, much less for the moral truth of each separate statement, +but only for the correspondence of the whole with ideal fact; in other +words, inspiration may guarantee that the story is true to nature, and is +valuable as conveying divine instruction. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is not necessary to suppose that the poetical speeches of Job's friends were actually +delivered in the words that have come down to us. Though Job never had had a historical +existence, the book would still be of the utmost value, and would convey to us +a vast amount of true teaching with regard to the dealings of God and the problem of +evil. Fact is local; truth is universal. Some novels contain more truth than can be +<pb n='241'/><anchor id='Pg241'/> +found in some histories. Other books of Scripture, however, assure us that Job was an +actual historical character (<emph>Ez. 14:14</emph>; <emph>James 5:11</emph>). Nor is it necessary to suppose that our +Lord, in telling the parable of the Prodigal Son (<emph>Luke 15:11-32</emph>) or that of the Unjust +Steward (<emph>16:1-8</emph>), had in mind actual persons of whom each parable was an exact +description. +</p> + +<p> +Fiction is not an unworthy vehicle of spiritual truth. Parable, and even fable, may +convey valuable lessons. In <emph>Judges 9:14, 15</emph>, the trees, the vine, the bramble, all talk. If +truth can be transmitted in myth and legend, surely God may make use of these +methods of communicating it, and even though <emph>Gen. 1-3</emph> were mythical it might still be +inspired. Aristotle said that poetry is truer than history. The latter only tells us that +certain things happened. Poetry presents to us the permanent passions, aspirations +and deeds of men which are behind all history and which make it what it is; see Dewey, +Psychology, 197. Though Job were a drama and Jonah an apologue, both might be +inspired. David Copperfield, the Apology of Socrates, Fra Lippo Lippi, were not the +authors of the productions which bear their names, but Dickens, Plato and Browning, +rather. Impersonation is a proper method in literature. The speeches of Herodotus +and Thucydides might be analogues to those in Deuteronomy and in the Acts, and +yet these last might be inspired. +</p> + +<p> +The book of Job could not have been written in patriarchal times. Walled cities, +kings, courts, lawsuits, prisons, stocks, mining enterprises, are found in it. Judges +are bribed by the rich to decide against the poor. All this belongs to the latter years +of the Jewish Kingdom. Is then the book of Job all a lie? No more than Bunyan's +Pilgrim's Progress and the parable of the Good Samaritan are all a lie. The book of +Job is a dramatic poem. Like Macbeth or the Ring and the Book, it is founded in fact. +H. P. Smith, Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, 101—<q>The value of the book of Job +lies in the spectacle of a human soul in its direst affliction working through its doubts, +and at last humbly confessing its weakness and sinfulness in the presence of its +Maker. The inerrancy is not in Job's words or in those of his friends, but in the truth +of the picture presented. If Jehovah's words at the end of the book are true, then the +first thirty-five chapters are not infallible teaching.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Gore, in Lux Mundi, 355, suggests in a similar manner that the books of Jonah and of +Daniel may be dramatic compositions worked up upon a basis of history. George +Adam Smith, in the Expositors' Bible, tells us that Jonah flourished 780 B. C., in the +reign of Jeroboam II. Nineveh fell in 606. The book implies that it was written after +this (<emph>3:3</emph>—<q>Nineveh <emph>was</emph> an exceeding great city</q>). The book does not claim to be written by +Jonah, by an eye-witness, or by a contemporary. The language has Aramaic forms. +The date is probably 300 B. C. There is an absence of precise data, such as the sin of +Nineveh, the journey of the prophet thither, the place where he was cast out on land, the +name of the Assyrian king. The book illustrates God's mission of prophecy to the Gentiles, +his care for them, their susceptibility to his word. Israel flies from duty, but is +delivered to carry salvation to the heathen. Jeremiah had represented Israel as swallowed +up and cast out (<emph>Jer. 51:34, 44 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>—<q>Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me ... +he hath, like a monster, swallowed me up, he hath filled his maw with my delicacies; he hath cast me out.... I will +bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up.</q></emph>) Some tradition of Jonah's proclaiming +doom to Nineveh may have furnished the basis of the apologue. Our Lord uses the +story as a mere illustration, like the homiletic use of Shakespeare's dramas. <q>As Macbeth +did,</q> <q>As Hamlet said,</q> do not commit us to the historical reality of Macbeth or +of Hamlet. Jesus may say as to questions of criticism: <emph><q>Man, who made me a judge or a divider +over you?</q> <q>I came not to judge the world, but to save the world</q> (Luke 12:14; John 12:47)</emph>. He had no +thought of confirming, or of not confirming, the historic character of the story. It is +hard to conceive the compilation of a psalm by a man in Jonah's position. It is not +the prayer of one inside the fish, but of one already saved. More than forty years ago +President Woolsey of Yale conceded that the book of Jonah was probably an apologue. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) In none of these cases ought the difficulty of distinguishing man's +words from God's words, or ideal truth from actual truth, to prevent our +acceptance of the fact of inspiration; for in this very variety of the Bible, +combined with the stimulus it gives to inquiry and the general plainness of +its lessons, we have the very characteristics we should expect in a book +whose authorship was divine. +</p> + +<pb n='242'/><anchor id='Pg242'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Scripture is a stream in which <q>the lamb may wade and the elephant may swim.</q> +There is need both of literary sense and of spiritual insight to interpret it. This sense +and this insight can be given only by the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, who inspired +the various writings to witness of him in various ways, and who is present in the world +to take of the things of Christ and show them to us (<emph>Mat. 28:20</emph>; <emph>John 16:13, 14</emph>). In a subordinate +sense the Holy Spirit inspires us to recognize inspiration in the Bible. In the +sense here suggested we may assent to the words of Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst at the +inauguration of William Adams Brown as Professor of Systematic Theology in the +Union Theological Seminary, November 1, 1898—<q>Unfortunately we have condemned +the word <q>inspiration</q> to a particular and isolated field of divine operation, and it is a +trespass upon current usage to employ it in the full urgency of its Scriptural intent in +connection with work like your own or mine. But the word voices a reality that lies so +close to the heart of the entire Christian matter that we can ill afford to relegate it to +any single or technical function. Just as much to-day as back at the first beginnings +of Christianity, those who would <emph>declare</emph> the truths of God must be inspired to <emph>behold</emph> +the truths of God.... The only irresistible persuasiveness is that which is born of vision, +and it is <emph>not</emph> vision to be able merely to describe what some seer has seen, though +it were Moses or Paul that was the seer.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>10. Acknowledgment of the non-inspiration of Scripture teachers +and their writings.</head> + +<p> +This charge rests mainly upon the misinterpretation of two particular +passages: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Acts 23:5 (<q>I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest</q>) +may be explained either as the language of indignant irony: <q>I would not +recognize such a man as high priest</q>; or, more naturally, an actual confession +of personal ignorance and fallibility, which does not affect the inspiration +of any of Paul's final teachings or writings. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Of a more reprehensible sort was Peter's dissimulation at Antioch, or practical disavowal +of his convictions by separating or withdrawing himself from the Gentile +Christians (<emph>Gal. 2:11-13</emph>). Here was no public teaching, but the influence of private +example. But neither in this case, nor in that mentioned above, did God suffer the +error to be a final one. Through the agency of Paul, the Holy Spirit set the matter +right. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) 1 Cor. 7:12, 10 (<q>I, not the Lord</q>; <q>not I, but the Lord</q>). Here +the contrast is not between the apostle inspired and the apostle uninspired, +but between the apostle's words and an actual saying of our Lord, as in +Mat. 5:32; 19:3-10; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18 (Stanley on Corinthians). +The expressions may be paraphrased:—<q>With regard to this matter no +express command was given by Christ before his ascension. As one inspired +by Christ, however, I give you my command.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Meyer on <emph>1 Cor. 7:10</emph>—<q>Paul distinguishes, therefore, here and in verses 12, 25, not +between <emph>his own</emph> and <emph>inspired</emph> commands, but between those which proceeded from his +own (God-inspired) subjectivity and those which Christ himself supplied by his objective +word.</q> <q>Paul knew from the living voice of tradition what commands Christ had +given concerning divorce.</q> Or if it should be maintained that Paul here disclaims +inspiration,—a supposition contradicted by the following δοκῶ—<emph><q>I think that I also have the +Spirit of God</q> (verse 40)</emph>,—it only proves a single exception to his inspiration, and since it is +expressly mentioned, and mentioned only once, it implies the inspiration of all the rest +of his writings. We might illustrate Paul's method, if this were the case, by the course +of the New York Herald when it was first published. Other journals had stood by +their own mistakes and had never been willing to acknowledge error. The Herald +gained the confidence of the public by correcting every mistake of its reporters. The +result was that, when there was no confession of error, the paper was regarded as absolutely +trustworthy. So Paul's one acknowledgment of non-inspiration might imply +that in all other cases his words had divine authority. On Authority in Religion, see +Wilfred Ward, in Hibbert Journal, July, 1903:677-692. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='243'/><anchor id='Pg243'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Part IV. The Nature, Decrees, And Works Of God.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter I. The Attributes Of God.</head> + +<p> +In contemplating the words and acts of God, as in contemplating the +words and acts of individual men, we are compelled to assign uniform and +permanent effects to uniform and permanent causes. Holy acts and words, +we argue, must have their source in a principle of holiness; truthful acts +and words, in a settled proclivity to truth; benevolent acts and words, in a +benevolent disposition. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, these permanent and uniform sources of expression and action +to which we have applied the terms principle, proclivity, disposition, since +they exist harmoniously in the same person, must themselves inhere, and +find their unity, in an underlying spiritual substance or reality of which +they are the inseparable characteristics and partial manifestations. +</p> + +<p> +Thus we are led naturally from the works to the attributes, and from the +attributes to the essence, of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For all practical purposes we may use the words essence, substance, being, nature, as +synonymous with each other. So, too, we may speak of attribute, quality, characteristic, +principle, proclivity, disposition, as practically one. As, in cognizing matter, we +pass from its effects in sensation to the qualities which produce the sensations, and +then to the material substance to which the qualities belong; and as, in cognizing mind, +we pass from its phenomena in thought and action to the faculties and dispositions +which give rise to these phenomena, and then to the mental substance to which these +faculties and dispositions belong; so, in cognizing God, we pass from his words and +acts to his qualities or attributes, and then to the substance or essence to which these +qualities or attributes belong. +</p> + +<p> +The teacher in a Young Ladies' Seminary described substance as a cushion, into which +the attributes as pins are stuck. But pins and cushion alike are substance,—neither +one is quality. The opposite error is illustrated from the experience of Abraham Lincoln +on the Ohio River. <q>What is this transcendentalism that we hear so much about?</q> +asked Mr. Lincoln. The answer came: <q>You see those swallows digging holes in +yonder bank? Well, take away the bank from around those holes, and what is left is +transcendentalism.</q> Substance is often represented as being thus transcendental. If +such representations were correct, metaphysics would indeed be <q>that, of which those +who listen understand nothing, and which he who speaks does not himself understand,</q> +and the metaphysician would be the fox who ran into the hole and then pulled in the +hole after him. Substance and attributes are correlates,—neither one is possible without +the other. There is no quality that does not qualify something; and there is no +thing, either material or spiritual, that can be known or can exist without qualities to +differentiate it from other things. In applying the categories of substance and attribute +to God, we indulge in no merely curious speculation, but rather yield to the necessities +of rational thought and show how we must think of God if we think at all. See +Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:240; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:172-188. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='244'/><anchor id='Pg244'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Definition of the term Attributes.</head> + +<p> +The attributes of God are those distinguishing characteristics of the +divine nature which are inseparable from the idea of God and which constitute +the basis and ground for his various manifestations to his creatures. +</p> + +<p> +We call them attributes, because we are compelled to attribute them to +God as fundamental qualities or powers of his being, in order to give +rational account of certain constant facts in God's self-revelations. +</p> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Relation of the divine Attributes to the divine Essence.</head> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>The attributes have an objective existence.</hi> They are not mere +names for human conceptions of God—conceptions which have their only +ground in the imperfection of the finite mind. They are qualities objectively +distinguishable from the divine essence and from each other. +</p> + +<p> +The nominalistic notion that God is a being of absolute simplicity, and +that in his nature there is no internal distinction of qualities or powers, +tends directly to pantheism; denies all reality of the divine perfections; +or, if these in any sense still exist, precludes all knowledge of them on the +part of finite beings. To say that knowledge and power, eternity and holiness, +are identical with the essence of God and with each other, is to deny +that we know God at all. +</p> + +<p> +The Scripture declarations of the possibility of knowing God, together +with the manifestation of the distinct attributes of his nature, are conclusive +against this false notion of the divine simplicity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Aristotle says well that there is no such thing as a science of the unique, of that +which has no analogies or relations. Knowing is distinguishing; what we cannot distinguish +from other things we cannot know. Yet a false tendency to regard God as a +being of absolute simplicity has come down from mediæval scholasticism, has infected +much of the post-reformation theology, and is found even so recently as in Schleiermacher, +Rothe, Olshausen, and Ritschl. E. G. Robinson defines the attributes as <q>our +methods of conceiving of God.</q> But this definition is influenced by the Kantian doctrine +of relativity and implies that we cannot know God's essence, that is, the thing-in-itself, +God's real being. Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 141—<q>This notion of the +divine simplicity reduces God to a rigid and lifeless stare.... The One is manifold +without being many.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The divine simplicity is the starting-point of Philo: God is a being absolutely bare +of quality. All quality in finite beings has limitation, and no limitation can be predicated +of God who is eternal, unchangeable, simple substance, free, self-sufficient, better +than the good and the beautiful. To predicate any quality of God would reduce him to +the sphere of finite existence. Of him we can only say <emph>that</emph> he is, not <emph>what</emph> he is; see +art. by Schürer, in Encyc. Brit., 18:761. +</p> + +<p> +Illustrations of this tendency are found in Scotus Erigena: <q>Deus nescit se quid est, +quia non est quid</q>; and in Occam: The divine attributes are distinguished neither +substantially nor logically from each other or from the divine essence; the only distinction +is that of names; so Gerhard and Quenstedt. Charnock, the Puritan writer, +identifies both knowledge and will with the simple essence of God. Schleiermacher +makes all the attributes to be modifications of power or causality; in his system God +and world = the <q>natura naturans</q> and <q>natura naturata</q> of Spinoza. There is no +distinction of attributes and no succession of acts in God, and therefore no real personality +or even spiritual being; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 110. Schleiermacher +said: <q>My God is the Universe.</q> God is causative force. Eternity, omniscience +and holiness are simply aspects of causality. Rothe, on the other hand, makes +omniscience to be the all-comprehending principle of the divine nature; and Olshausen, +on <emph>John 1:1</emph>, in a similar manner attempts to prove that the Word of God must have +objective and substantial being, by assuming that knowing = willing; whence it +would seem to follow that, since God wills all that he knows, he must will moral evil. +<pb n='245'/><anchor id='Pg245'/> +Bushnell and others identify righteousness in God with benevolence, and therefore +cannot see that any atonement needs to be made to God. Ritschl also holds that love +is the fundamental divine attribute, and that omnipotence and even personality are +simply modifications of love; see Mead, Ritschl's Place in the History of Doctrine, 8. +Herbert Spencer only carries the principle further when he concludes God to be simple +unknowable force. +</p> + +<p> +But to call God everything is the same as to call him nothing. With Dorner, we say +that <q>definition is no limitation.</q> As we rise in the scale of creation from the mere +jelly-sac to man, the homogeneous becomes the heterogeneous, there is differentiation +of functions, complexity increases. We infer that God, the highest of all, instead of +being simple force, is infinitely complex, that he has an infinite variety of attributes +and powers. Tennyson, Palace of Art (lines omitted in the later editions): <q>All +nature widens upward: evermore The simpler essence lower lies: More complex is +more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Jer. 10:10</emph>—God is <emph><q>the living God</q></emph>; <emph>John 5:26</emph>—he <emph><q>hath life in himself</q></emph>—unsearchable riches of +positive attributes; <emph>John 17:23—<q>thou lovedst me</q></emph>—manifoldness in unity. This complexity +in God is the ground of blessedness for him and of progress for us: <emph>1 Tim. 1:11—<q>the blessed +God</q></emph>; <emph>Jer. 9:23, 24—<q>let him glory in this, that he knoweth me.</q></emph> The complex nature of God permits +anger at the sinner and compassion for him at the same moment: <emph>Ps. 7:11—<q>a God +that hath indignation every day</q></emph>; <emph>John 3:16—<q>God so loved the world</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 85:10, 11—<q>mercy and truth are met +together.</q></emph> See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:116 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>; Schweizer, Glaubenslehre, 1:229-235; +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:43, 50; Martensen, Dogmatics, 91—<q>If God +were the simple One, τὸ ἁπλῶς ἕν, the mystic abyss in which every form of determination +were extinguished, there would be nothing in the Unity to be known.</q> Hence <q>nominalism +is incompatible with the idea of revelation. We teach, with realism, that the +attributes of God are objective determinations in his revelation and as such are rooted +in his inmost essence.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>The attributes inhere in the divine essence.</hi> They are not separate +existences. They are attributes of God. +</p> + +<p> +While we oppose the nominalistic view which holds them to be mere +names with which, by the necessity of our thinking, we clothe the one simple +divine essence, we need equally to avoid the opposite realistic extreme +of making them separate parts of a composite God. +</p> + +<p> +We cannot conceive of attributes except as belonging to an underlying +essence which furnishes their ground of unity. In representing God as a +compound of attributes, realism endangers the living unity of the Godhead. +</p> + +<p> +Notice the analogous necessity of attributing the properties of matter to an underlying +substance, and the phenomena of thought to an underlying spiritual essence; +else matter is reduced to mere force, and mind, to mere sensation,—in short, all things +are swallowed up in a vast idealism. The purely realistic explanation of the attributes +tends to low and polytheistic conceptions of God. The mythology of Greece was the +result of personifying the divine attributes. The <foreign rend='italic'>nomina</foreign> were turned into <foreign rend='italic'>numina</foreign>, +as Max Müller says; see Taylor, Nature on the Basis of Realism, 293. Instance also +Christmas Evans's sermon describing a Council in the Godhead, in which the attributes +of Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, and Power argue with one another. Robert Hall called +Christmas Evans <q>the one-eyed orator of Anglesey,</q> but added that his one eye could +<q>light an army through a wilderness</q>; see Joseph Cross, Life and Sermons of Christmas +Evans, 112-116; David Rhys Stephen, Memoirs of Christmas Evans, 168-176. We must +remember that <q>Realism may so exalt the attributes that no personal subject is left to +constitute the ground of unity. Looking upon Personality as anthropomorphism, it +falls into a worse personification, that of omnipotence, holiness, benevolence, which +are mere blind thoughts, unless there is one who is the Omnipotent, the Holy, the +Good.</q> See Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 70. +</p> + +<p> +3. <hi rend='italic'>The attributes belong to the divine essence as such.</hi> They are to be +distinguished from those other powers or relations which do not appertain +to the divine essence universally. +</p> + +<pb n='246'/><anchor id='Pg246'/> + +<p> +The personal distinctions (<foreign rend='italic'>proprietates</foreign>) in the nature of the one God +are not to be denominated attributes; for each of these personal distinctions +belongs not to the divine essence as such and universally, but only to the +particular person of the Trinity who bears its name, while on the contrary +all of the attributes belong to each of the persons. +</p> + +<p> +The relations which God sustains to the world (<foreign rend='italic'>predicata</foreign>), moreover, +such as creation, preservation, government, are not to be denominated +attributes; for these are accidental, not necessary or inseparable from the +idea of God. God would be God, if he had never created. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To make creation eternal and necessary is to dethrone God and to enthrone a fatalistic +development. It follows that the nature of the attributes is to be illustrated, not +alone or chiefly from wisdom and holiness in man, which are not inseparable from man's +nature, but rather from intellect and will in man, without which he would cease to be +man altogether. Only that is an attribute, of which it can be safely said that he who +possesses it would, if deprived of it, cease to be God. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:335—<q>The +attribute is the whole essence acting in a certain way. The centre of unity is not +in any one attribute, but in the essence.... The difference between the divine attribute +and the divine person is, that the person is a mode of the <emph>existence</emph> of the essence, +while the attribute is a mode either of the <emph>relation</emph>, or of the <emph>operation</emph>, of the essence.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +4. <hi rend='italic'>The attributes manifest the divine essence.</hi> The essence is revealed +only through the attributes. Apart from its attributes it is unknown and +unknowable. +</p> + +<p> +But though we can know God only as he reveals to us his attributes, we +do, notwithstanding, in knowing these attributes, know the being to whom +these attributes belong. That this knowledge is partial does not prevent +its corresponding, so far as it goes, to objective reality in the nature of God. +</p> + +<p> +All God's revelations are, therefore, revelations of himself in and through +his attributes. Our aim must be to determine from God's works and words +what qualities, dispositions, determinations, powers of his otherwise unseen +and unsearchable essence he has actually made known to us; or in other +words, what are the revealed attributes of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 1:18—<q>No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, +he hath declared him</q></emph>; <emph>1 Tim. 6:16—<q>whom no man hath seen, nor can see</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 5:8—<q>Blessed are the pure +in heart: for they shall see God</q></emph>; <emph>11:27—<q>neither doth any man know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever +the Son willeth to reveal him.</q></emph> C. A. Strong: <q>Kant, not content with knowing the reality +<emph>in</emph> the phenomena, was trying to know the reality <emph>apart from</emph> the phenomena; he was +seeking to know, without fulfilling the conditions of knowledge; in short, he wished +to know without knowing.</q> So Agnosticism perversely regards God as concealed by +his own manifestation. On the contrary, in knowing the phenomena we know the +object itself. J. C. C. Clarke, Self and the Father, 6—<q>In language, as in nature, there +are no verbs without subjects, but we are always hunting for the noun that has no +adjective, and the verb that has no subject, and the subject that has no verb. Consciousness +is necessarily a consciousness of self. Idealism and monism would like to see +all verbs solid with their subjects, and to write <q>I do</q> or <q>I feel</q> in the mazes of a monogram, +but consciousness refuses, and before it says <q>Do</q> or <q>Feel</q> it finishes saying +<q>I.</q></q> J. G. Holland's Katrina, to her lover: <q>God is not worshiped in his attributes. +I do not love your attributes, but you. Your attributes all meet me otherwhere, Blended +in other personalities, Nor do I love nor do I worship them, Nor those who bear +them. E'en the spotted pard Will dare a danger which will make you pale; But shall +his courage steal my heart from you? You cheat your conscience, for you know That +I may like your attributes. Yet love not you.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Methods of determining the divine Attributes.</head> + +<p> +We have seen that the existence of God is a first truth. It is presupposed +in all human thinking, and is more or less consciously recognized by +<pb n='247'/><anchor id='Pg247'/> +all men. This intuitive knowledge of God we have seen to be corroborated +and explicated by arguments drawn from nature and from mind. Reason +leads us to a causative and personal Intelligence upon whom we depend. +This Being of indefinite greatness we clothe, by a necessity of our thinking, +with all the attributes of perfection. The two great methods of determining +what these attributes are, are the Rational and the Biblical. +</p> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>The Rational method.</hi> This is threefold:—(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>via negationis</foreign>, +or the way of negation, which consists in denying to God all imperfections +observed in created beings; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>via eminentiæ</foreign>, or the way of climax, +which consists in attributing to God in infinite degree all the perfections +found in creatures; and (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>via causalitatis</foreign>, or the way of causality, +which consists in predicating of God those attributes which are required in +him to explain the world of nature and of mind. +</p> + +<p> +This rational method explains God's nature from that of his creation, +whereas the creation itself can be fully explained only from the nature of +God. Though the method is valuable, it has insuperable limitations, and +its place is a subordinate one. While we use it continually to confirm and +supplement results otherwise obtained, our chief means of determining the +divine attributes must be +</p> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>The Biblical method.</hi> This is simply the inductive method, applied +to the facts with regard to God revealed in the Scriptures. Now that we +have proved the Scriptures to be a revelation from God, inspired in every +part, we may properly look to them as decisive authority with regard to +God's attributes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The rational method of determining the attributes of God is sometimes said to have +been originated by Dionysius the Areopagite, reputed to have been a judge at Athens +at the time of Paul and to have died A. D. 95. It is more probably eclectic, combining +the results attained by many theologians, and applying the intuitions of perfection and +causality which lie at the basis of all religious thinking. It is evident from our previous +study of the arguments for God's existence, that from nature we cannot learn either +the Trinity or the mercy of God, and that these deficiencies in our rational conclusions +with respect to God must be supplied, if at all, by revelation. Spurgeon, Autobiography, +166—<q>The old saying is 'Go from Nature up to Nature's God.' But it is hard +work going up hill. The best thing is to go from Nature's God down to Nature; and, +if you once get to Nature's God and believe him and love him, it is surprising how +easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds, +and to see God everywhere.</q> See also Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:181. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Classification of the Attributes.</head> + +<p> +The attributes may be divided into two great classes: Absolute or Immanent, +and Relative or Transitive. +</p> + +<p> +By Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we mean attributes which respect +the inner being of God, which are involved in God's relations to himself, +and which belong to his nature independently of his connection with the +universe. +</p> + +<p> +By Relative or Transitive Attributes, we mean attributes which respect +the outward revelation of God's being, which are involved in God's relations +to the creation, and which are exercised in consequence of the existence of +the universe and its dependence upon him. +</p> + +<pb n='248'/><anchor id='Pg248'/> + +<p> +Under the head of Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we make a three-fold +division into Spirituality, with the attributes therein involved, namely, Life +and Personality; Infinity, with the attributes therein involved, namely, +Self-existence, Immutability, and Unity; and Perfection, with the attributes +therein involved, namely, Truth, Love, and Holiness. +</p> + +<p> +Under the head of Relative or Transitive Attributes, we make a three-fold +division, according to the order of their revelation, into Attributes +having relation to Time and Space, as Eternity and Immensity; Attributes +having relation to Creation, as Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence; +and Attributes having relation to Moral Beings, as Veracity and +Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth; Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive +Love; and Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness. +</p> + +<p> +This classification may be better understood from the following schedule: +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<lg> +<l>1. Absolute or Immanent Attributes:</l> +<l>A. Spirituality, involving (a) Life, (b) Personality.</l> +<l>B. Infinity, involving (a) Self-existence, (b) Immutability, (c) Unity.</l> +<l>C. Perfection, involving (a) Truth, (b) Love, (c) Holiness.</l> +</lg> + +<lg> +<l>2. Relative or Transitive Attributes:</l> +<l>A. Related to Time and Space—(a) Eternity, (b) Immensity.</l> +<l>B. Related to Creation—(a) Omnipresence, (b) Omniscience, (c) Omnipotence.</l> +<l>C. Related to Moral Beings—(a) Veracity, (b) Mercy, (c) Justice.</l> +</lg> + +</quote> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It will be observed, upon examination of the preceding schedule, that our classification +presents God first as Spirit, then as the infinite Spirit, and finally as the perfect Spirit. +This accords with our definition of the term God (see page <ref target='Pg052'>52</ref>). It also corresponds +with the order in which the attributes commonly present themselves to the human +mind. Our first thought of God is that of mere Spirit, mysterious and undefined, over +against our own spirits. Our next thought is that of God's greatness; the quantitative +element suggests itself; his natural attributes rise before us; we recognize him as +<pb n='249'/><anchor id='Pg249'/> +the infinite One. Finally comes the qualitative element; our moral natures recognize +a moral God; over against our error, selfishness and impurity, we perceive his absolute +perfection. +</p> + +<p> +It should also be observed that this moral perfection, as it is an immanent attribute, +involves relation of God to himself. Truth, love and holiness, as they respectively +imply an exercise in God of intellect, affection and will, may be conceived of as God's +self-knowing, God's self-loving, and God's self-willing. The significance of this will +appear more fully in the discussion of the separate attributes. +</p> + +<p> +Notice the distinction between absolute and relative, between immanent and transitive, +attributes. Absolute = existing in no necessary relation to things outside of God. +Relative = existing in such relation. Immanent = <q>remaining within, limited to, God's +own nature in their activity and effect, inherent and indwelling, internal and subjective—opposed +to emanent or transitive.</q> Transitive = having an object outside of God +himself. We speak of transitive verbs, and we mean verbs that are followed by an +object. God's transitive attributes are so called, because they respect and affect things +and beings outside of God. +</p> + +<p> +The aim of this classification into Absolute and Relative Attributes is to make plain +the divine self-sufficiency. Creation is not a necessity, for there is a πλήρωμα in God +(<emph>Col. 1:19</emph>), even before he makes the world or becomes incarnate. And πλήρωμα is not +<q>the filling material,</q> nor <q>the vessel filled,</q> but <q>that which is complete in itself,</q> +or, in other words, <q>plenitude,</q> <q>fulness,</q> <q>totality,</q> <q>abundance.</q> The whole universe +is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of God's garment, or a breath exhaled from +his mouth. He could create a universe a hundred times as great. Nature is but the +symbol of God. The tides of life that ebb and flow on the far shores of the universe +are only faint expressions of his life. The Immanent Attributes show us how completely +matters of grace are Creation and Redemption, and how unspeakable is the +condescension of him who took our humanity and humbled himself to the death of the +Cross. <emph>Ps. 8:3, 4—<q>When I consider thy heavens ... what is man that thou art mindful of him?</q></emph> <emph>113:5, 6—<q>Who +is like unto Jehovah our God, that hath his seat on high, that humbleth himself?</q></emph> <emph>Phil. 2:6, 7—<q>Who, +existing in the form of God, ... emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Ladd, Theory of Reality, 69—<q>I know <emph>that</emph> I am, because, as the basis of all discriminations +as to <emph>what</emph> I am, and as the core of all such self-knowledge, I immediately know +myself as <emph>will</emph></q> So as to the non-ego, <q>that things actually are is a factor in my knowledge +of them which springs from the root of an experience with myself as a <emph>will</emph>, at +once active and inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another.</q> The ego and +the non-ego as well are fundamentally and essentially <emph>will</emph>. <q>Matter must be, <hi rend='italic'>per se</hi>, +Force. But this is ... to be a Will</q> (439). We know nothing of the atom apart from +its force (442). Ladd quotes from G. E. Bailey: <q>The life-principle, varying only in +degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and +Intelligence, and this thrills through every atom of the whole Cosmos</q> (446). <q>Science +has only made the Substrate of material things more and more completely self-like</q> +(449). Spirit is the true and essential Being of what is called Nature (472). <q>The ultimate +Being of the world is a self-conscious Mind and Will, which is the Ground of all +objects made known in human experience</q> (550). +</p> + +<p> +On classification of attributes, see Luthardt, Compendium, 71; Rothe, Dogmatik, 71; +Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:162; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:47, 52, 136. On the +general subject, see Charnock, Attributes; Bruce, Eigenschaftslehre. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. Absolute or Immanent Attributes.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>First division.—Spirituality, and attributes therein involved.</head> + +<p> +In calling spirituality an attribute of God, we mean, not that we are justified +in applying to the divine nature the adjective <q>spiritual,</q> but that +the substantive <q>Spirit</q> describes that nature (John 4:24, marg.—<q>God +is spirit</q>; Rom. 1:20—<q>the invisible things of him</q>; 1 Tim. 1:17—<q>incorruptible, +invisible</q>; Col. 1:15—<q>the invisible God</q>). This +implies, negatively, that (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) God is not matter. Spirit is not a refined +form of matter but an immaterial substance, invisible, uncompounded, +indestructible. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) God is not dependent upon matter. It cannot be +shown that the human mind, in any other state than the present, is dependent +<pb n='250'/><anchor id='Pg250'/> +for consciousness upon its connection with a physical organism. +Much less is it true that God is dependent upon the material universe as +his sensorium. God is not only spirit, but he is pure spirit. He is not +only not matter, but he has no necessary connection with matter (Luke +24:39—<q>A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having</q>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +John gives us the three characteristic attributes of God when he says that God is +<emph><q>spirit,</q> <q>light,</q> <q>love</q> (John 4:24; 1 John 1:5; 4:8)</emph>,—not <emph>a</emph> spirit, <emph>a</emph> light, <emph>a</emph> love. Le Conte, in +Royce's Conception of God, 45—<q>God is spirit, for spirit is essential Life and essential +Energy, and essential Love, and essential Thought; in a word, essential Person.</q> Biedermann, +Dogmatik, 631—<q>Das Wesen des Geistes als des reinen Gegensatzes zur Materie, +ist das <emph>reine Sein</emph>, das <emph>in sich ist</emph>, aber <emph>nicht da ist</emph>.</q> Martineau, Study, 2:366—<q>The +subjective Ego is always <emph>here</emph>, as opposed to all else, which is variously <emph>there</emph>.... +Without local relations, therefore, the soul is inaccessible.</q> But, Martineau continues, +<q>if matter be but centres of force, all the soul needs may be centres from which to +act.</q> Romanes, Mind and Motion, 34—<q>Because within the limits of human experience +mind is only known as associated with brain, it does not follow that mind cannot +exist in any other mode.</q> La Place swept the heavens with his telescope, but could +not find anywhere a God. <q>He might just as well,</q> says President Sawyer, <q>have +swept his kitchen with a broom.</q> Since God is not a material being, he cannot be +apprehended by any physical means. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Those passages of Scripture which seem to ascribe to God the possession +of bodily parts and organs, as eyes and hands, are to be regarded as +anthropomorphic and symbolic. <q>When God is spoken of as appearing to +the patriarchs and walking with them, the passages are to be explained as +referring to God's temporary manifestations of himself in human form—manifestations +which prefigured the final tabernacling of the Son of God +in human flesh. Side by side with these anthropomorphic expressions +and manifestations, moreover, are specific declarations which repress any +materializing conceptions of God; as, for example, that heaven is his throne +and the earth his footstool (Is. 66:1), and that the heaven of heavens cannot +contain him (1 K. 8:27).</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 33:18-20</emph> declares that man cannot see God and live; <emph>1 Cor. 2:7-16</emph> intimates that without +the teaching of God's Spirit we cannot know God; all this teaches that God is +above sensuous perception, in other words, that he is not a material being. The second +command of the decalogue does not condemn sculpture and painting, but only the +making of images of <emph>God</emph>. It forbids our conceiving God after the likeness of a <emph>thing</emph>, +but it does not forbid our conceiving God after the likeness of our inward <emph>self</emph>, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, as +<emph>personal</emph>. This again shows that God is a spiritual being. Imagination can be used in +religion, and great help can be derived from it. Yet we do not know God by imagination,—imagination +only helps us vividly to realize the presence of the God whom we +already know. We may almost say that some men have not imagination enough to be +religious. But imagination must not lose its wings. In its representations of God, +it must not be confined to a picture, or a form, or a place. Humanity tends too much +to rest in the material and the sensuous, and we must avoid all representations of God +which would identify the Being who is worshiped with the helps used in order to realize +his presence; <emph>John 4:24—<q>they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +An Egyptian Hymn to the Nile, dating from the 19th dynasty (14th century B. C.), +contains these words: <q>His abode is not known; no shrine is found with painted figures; +there is no building that can contain him</q> (Cheyne, Isaiah, 2:120). The repudiation +of images among the ancient Persians (Herod. 1:131), as among the Japanese +Shintos, indicates the remains of a primitive spiritual religion. The representation of +Jehovah with body or form degrades him to the level of heathen gods. Pictures of the +Almighty over the chancels of Romanist cathedrals confine the mind and degrade the +conception of the worshiper. We may use imagination in prayer, picturing God as a +benignant form holding out arms of mercy, but we should regard such pictures only +as scaffolding for the building of our edifice of worship, while we recognize, with the +Scripture, that the reality worshiped is immaterial and spiritual. Otherwise our idea of +<pb n='251'/><anchor id='Pg251'/> +God is brought down to the low level of man's material being. Even man's spiritual +nature may be misrepresented by physical images, as when mediæval artists pictured +death, by painting a doll-like figure leaving the body at the mouth of the person dying. +</p> + +<p> +The longing for a tangible, incarnate God meets its satisfaction in Jesus Christ. Yet +even pictures of Christ soon lose their power. Luther said: <q>If I have a picture of +Christ in my heart, why not one upon canvas?</q> We answer: Because the picture in +the heart is capable of change and improvement, as we ourselves change and improve; +the picture upon canvas is fixed, and holds to old conceptions which we should outgrow. +Thomas Carlyle: <q>Men never think of painting the face of Christ, till they lose +the impression of him upon their hearts.</q> Swedenborg, in modern times, represents +the view that God exists in the shape of a man—an anthropomorphism of which the +making of idols is only a grosser and more barbarous form; see H. B. Smith, System of +Theology, 9, 10. This is also the doctrine of Mormonism; see Spencer, Catechism of +Latter Day Saints. The Mormons teach that God is a man; that he has numerous wives +by whom he peoples space with an infinite number of spirits. Christ was a favorite son +by a favorite wife, but birth as man was the only way he could come into the enjoyment +of real life. These spirits are all the sons of God, but they can realize and enjoy +their sonship only through birth. They are about every one of us pleading to be born. +Hence, polygamy. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +We come now to consider the positive import of the term Spirit. The +spirituality of God involves the two attributes of Life and Personality. +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Life.</head> + +<p> +The Scriptures represent God as the living God. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Jer. 10:10—<q>He is the living God</q></emph>; <emph>1 Thess. 1:9—<q>turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true +God</q></emph>; <emph>John 5:26-<q>hath life in himself</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>14:6—<q>I am ... the life,</q></emph> and <emph>Heb. 7:16—<q>the power of an +endless life</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 11:11—<q>the Spirit of life.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Life is a simple idea, and is incapable of real definition. We know it, +however, in ourselves, and we can perceive the insufficiency or inconsistency +of certain current definitions of it. We cannot regard life in God as +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Mere <emph>process</emph>, without a subject; for we cannot conceive of a +divine life without a God to live it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1:10—<q>Life and mind are processes; +neither is a substance; neither is a force; ... the name given to the whole group of +phenomena becomes the personification of the phenomena, and the product is supposed +to have been the producer.</q> Here we have a product without any producer—a series +of phenomena without any substance of which they are manifestations. In a similar +manner we read in Dewey, Psychology, 247—<q>Self is an <emph>activity</emph>. It is not something +which acts; it is activity.... It is constituted by activities.... Through its activity +the soul is.</q> Here it does not appear how there can be activity, without any subject +or being that is active. The inconsistency of this view is manifest when Dewey goes +on to say: <q>The activity may further or develop the self,</q> and when he speaks of +<q>the organic activity of the self.</q> So Dr. Burdon Sanderson: <q>Life is a state of ceaseless +change,—a state of change with permanence; living matter ever changes while it +is ever the same.</q> <q>Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.</q> But this permanent +thing in the midst of change is the subject, the self, the being, that <emph>has</emph> life. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Nor can we regard life as +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Mere <emph>correspondence</emph> with outward condition and environment; +for this would render impossible a life of God before the existence of the +universe. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Herbert Spencer, Biology, 1:59-71—<q>Life is the definite combination of +heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with +external coëxistences and sequences.</q> Here we have, at best, a definition of physical +and finite life; and even this is insufficient, because the definition recognizes no original +source of activity within, but only a power of reaction in response to stimulus +from without. We might as well say that the boiling tea-kettle is alive (Mark Hopkins). +<pb n='252'/><anchor id='Pg252'/> +We find this defect also in Robert Browning's lines in The Ring and the Book +(The Pope, 1307): <q>O Thou—as represented here to me In such conception as my +soul allows—Under thy measureless, my atom-width!—Man's mind, what is it but a +convex glass Wherein are gathered all the scattered points Picked out of the immensity +of sky, To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, Our known Unknown, our God +revealed to man?</q> Life is something more than a passive receptivity. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Life is rather <emph>mental energy</emph>, or energy of intellect, affection, and +will. God is the living God, as having in his own being a source of being +and activity, both for himself and others. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Life means energy, activity, movement. Aristotle: <q>Life is energy of mind.</q> +Wordsworth, Excursion, book 5:602—<q>Life is love and immortality, The Being one, +and one the element.... Life, I repeat, is energy of love Divine or human.</q> Prof. +C. L. Herrick, on Critics of Ethical Monism, in Denison Quarterly, Dec. 1896:248—<q>Force +is energy under resistance, or self-limited energy, for all parts of the universe +are derived from the energy. Energy manifesting itself under self-conditioning or +differential forms is force. The change of pure energy into force is creation.</q> Prof. +Herrick quotes from S. T. Coleridge, Anima Poetæ: <q>Space is the name for God; it is +the most perfect image of soul—pure soul being to us nothing but unresisted action. +Whenever action is resisted, limitation begins—and limitation is the first constituent +of body; the more omnipresent it is in a given space, the more that space is body or +matter; and thus all body presupposes soul, inasmuch as all resistance presupposes +action.</q> Schelling: <q>Life is the tendency to individualism.</q> +</p> + +<p> +If spirit in man implies life, spirit in God implies endless and inexhaustible life. The +total life of the universe is only a faint image of that moving energy which we call the +life of God. Dewey, Psychology, 253—<q>The sense of being alive is much more vivid +in childhood than afterwards. Leigh Hunt says that, when he was a child, the sight of +certain palings painted red gave him keener pleasure than any experience of manhood.</q> +Matthew Arnold: <q>Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very +heaven.</q> The child's delight in country scenes, and our intensified perceptions in brain +fever, show us by contrast how shallow and turbid is the stream of our ordinary life. +Tennyson, Two Voices: <q>'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for +which we pant; More life, and fuller, that we want.</q> That life the needy human spirit +finds only in the infinite God. Instead of Tyndall's: <q>Matter has in it the promise and +potency of every form of life,</q> we accept Sir William Crookes's dictum: <q>Life has in +it the promise and potency of every form of matter.</q> See A. H. Strong, on The Living +God, in Philos. and Religion, 180-187. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Personality.</head> + +<p> +The Scriptures represent God as a personal being. By personality we +mean the power of self-consciousness and of self-determination. By way +of further explanation we remark: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Self-consciousness is more than consciousness. This last the brute +may be supposed to possess, since the brute is not an automaton. Man is +distinguished from the brute by his power to objectify self. Man is not +only conscious of his own acts and states, but by abstraction and reflection +he recognizes the self which is the subject of these acts and states. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) +Self-determination is more than determination. The brute shows determination, +but his determination is the result of influences from without; there +is no inner spontaneity. Man, by virtue of his free-will, determines his +action from within. He determines self in view of motives, but his determination +is not caused by motives; he himself is the cause. +</p> + +<p> +God, as personal, is in the highest degree self-conscious and self-determining. +The rise in our own minds of the idea of God, as personal, +depends largely upon our recognition of personality in ourselves. Those +who deny spirit in man place a bar in the way of the recognition of this +attribute of God. +</p> + +<pb n='253'/><anchor id='Pg253'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 3:14—<q>And God said unto Moses, <hi rend='smallcaps'>I am that I am</hi>: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of +Israel, <hi rend='smallcaps'>I am</hi> hath sent me unto you.</q></emph> God is not the everlasting <q><hi rend='smallcaps'>It is</hi>,</q> or <q><hi rend='smallcaps'>I was</hi>,</q> but the +everlasting <q><hi rend='smallcaps'>I am</hi></q> (Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 128); <q><hi rend='smallcaps'>I am</hi></q> implies both +personality and presence. <emph>1 Cor. 2:11—<q>the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:9—<q>good +pleasure which he purposed</q></emph>; <emph>11—<q>the counsel of his will.</q></emph> Definitions of personality are the +following: Boethius—<q>Persona est animæ rationalis individua substantia</q> (quoted +in Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:415). F. W. Robertson, Genesis 3—<q>Personality = self-consciousness, +will, character.</q> Porter, Human Intellect, 626—<q>Distinct subsistence, +either actually or latently self-conscious and self-determining.</q> Harris, Philos. Basis +of Theism: Person = <q>being, conscious of self, subsisting in individuality and identity, +and endowed with intuitive reason, rational sensibility, and free-will.</q> See Harris, 98, +99, quotation from Mansel—<q>The freedom of the will is so far from being, as it is +generally considered, a controvertible question in philosophy, that it is the fundamental +postulate without which all action and all speculation, philosophy in all its branches +and human consciousness itself, would be impossible.</q> +</p> + +<p> +One of the most astounding announcements in all literature is that of Matthew +Arnold, in his <q>Literature and Dogma,</q> that the Hebrew Scriptures recognize in God +only <q>the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness</q> = the God of pantheism. +The <q><hi rend='smallcaps'>I am</hi></q> of <emph>Ex. 3:14</emph> could hardly have been so misunderstood, if Matthew Arnold had +not lost the sense of his own personality and responsibility. From free-will in man we +rise to freedom in God—<q>That living Will that shall endure, When all that seems shall +suffer shock.</q> Observe that personality needs to be accompanied by life—the power +of self-consciousness and self-determination needs to be accompanied by activity—in +order to make up our total idea of God as Spirit. Only this personality of God gives +proper meaning to his punishments or to his forgiveness. See Bib. Sac., April, 1884:217-233; +Eichhorn, die Persönlichkeit Gottes. +</p> + +<p> +Illingworth, Divine and Human Personality, 1:25, shows that the sense of personality +has had a gradual growth; that its pre-Christian recognition was imperfect; that its +final definition has been due to Christianity. In 29-53, he notes the characteristics of +personality as reason, love, will. The brute <emph>perceives</emph>; only the man <emph>apperceives</emph>, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, +recognizes his perception as belonging to himself. In the German story, Dreiäuglein, +the three-eyed child, had besides her natural pair of eyes one other to see what the pair +did, and besides her natural will had an additional will to set the first to going right. +On consciousness and self-consciousness, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:179-189—<q>In consciousness +the object is another substance than the subject; but in self-consciousness +the object is the same substance as the subject.</q> Tennyson, in his Palace of Art, speaks +of <q>the abysmal depths of personality.</q> We do not fully know ourselves, nor yet our +relation to God. But the divine consciousness embraces the whole divine content of +being: <emph><q>the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God</q> (1 Cor. 2:10)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +We are not fully masters of ourselves. Our self-determination is as limited as is +our self-consciousness. But the divine will is absolutely without hindrance; God's +activity is constant, intense, infinite; <emph>Job 23:13—<q>What his soul desireth, even that he doeth</q></emph>; <emph>John 5:17—<q>My +Father worketh even until now, and I work.</q></emph> Self-knowledge and self-mastery are the +dignity of man; they are also the dignity of God; Tennyson: <q>Self-reverence, self-knowledge, +self-control, These three lead life to sovereign power.</q> Robert Browning, +The Last Ride Together: <q>What act proved all its thought had been? What will but +felt the fleshly screen?</q> Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 6, 161, 216-255—<q>Perhaps +the root of personality is capacity for affection.</q>... Our personality is incomplete; +we reason truly only with God helping; our love in higher Love endures; we +will rightly, only as God works in us to will and to do; to make us truly ourselves we +need an infinite Personality to supplement and energize our own; we are complete only +in Christ (<emph>Col. 2:9, 10—<q>In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full.</q></emph>) +</p> + +<p> +Webb, on the Idea of Personality as applied to God, in Jour. Theol. Studies, 2:50—<q>Self +knows itself and what is not itself as two, just because both alike are embraced +within the unity of its experience, stand out against this background, the apprehension +of which is the very essence of that rationality or personality which distinguishes +us from the lower animals. We find that background, God, present in us, or +rather, we find ourselves present in it. But if I find myself present in it, then it, as more +complete, is simply more personal than I. Our not-self is outside of us, so that we are +finite and lonely, but God's not-self is within him, so that there is a mutual inwardness +of love and insight of which the most perfect communion among men is only a faint +symbol. We are 'hermit-spirits,' as Keble says, and we come to union with others +only by realizing our union with God. Personality is not impenetrable in man, for +<pb n='254'/><anchor id='Pg254'/> +<emph><q>in him we live, and move, and have our being</q> (Acts 17:28)</emph>, and <emph><q>that which hath been made is life in him</q> +(John 1:3, 4)</emph>.</q> Palmer, Theologic Definition, 39—<q>That which has its cause without +itself is a thing, while that which has its cause within itself is a person.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Second Division.—Infinity, and attributes therein involved.</head> + +<p> +By infinity we mean, not that the divine nature has no known limits +or bounds, but that it has no limits or bounds. That which has simply no +known limits is the indefinite. The infinity of God implies that he is in +no way limited by the universe or confined to the universe; he is transcendent +as well as immanent. Transcendence, however, must not be conceived +as freedom from merely spatial restrictions, but rather as unlimited +resource, of which God's glory is the expression. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 145:3—<q>his greatness is unsearchable</q></emph>; <emph>Job 11:7-9—<q>high as heaven ... deeper than Sheol</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 66:1—<q>Heaven +is my throne, and the earth is my footstool</q></emph>; <emph>1 K. 8:27—<q>Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain +thee</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 11:33—<q>how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.</q></emph> There can be no +infinite number, since to any assignable number a unit can be added, which shows that +this number was not infinite before. There can be no infinite universe, because an +infinite universe is conceivable only as an infinite number of worlds or of minds. God +himself is the only real Infinite, and the universe is but the finite expression or symbol +of his greatness. +</p> + +<p> +We therefore object to the statement of Lotze, Microcosm, 1:446—<q>The complete +system, grasped in its totality, offers an expression of the whole nature of the One.... +The Cause makes actual existence its complete manifestation.</q> In a similar way +Schurman, Belief in God, 26, 173-178, grants infinity, but denies transcendence: <q>The +infinite Spirit may include the finite, as the idea of a single organism embraces within a +single life a plurality of members and functions.... The world is the expression of +an ever active and inexhaustible will. That the external manifestation is as boundless +as the life it expresses, science makes exceedingly probable. In any event, we have +not the slightest reason to contrast the finitude of the world with the infinity of God.... +If the natural order is eternal and infinite, as there seems no reason to doubt, it +will be difficult to find a meaning for <q>beyond</q> or <q>before.</q> Of this illimitable, ever-existing +universe, God is the Inner ground or substance. There is no evidence, neither +does any religious need require us to believe, that the divine Being manifest in the +universe has any actual or possible existence elsewhere, in some transcendent sphere.... +The divine will can express itself only as it does, because no other expression +would reveal what it is. Of such a will, the universe is the eternal expression.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In explanation of the term infinity, we may notice: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That infinity can belong to but one Being, and therefore cannot be +shared with the universe. Infinity is not a negative but a positive idea. +It does not take its rise from an impotence of thought, but is an intuitive +conviction which constitutes the basis of all other knowledge. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Porter, Human Intellect, 651, 652, and this Compendium, pages 59-62. <hi rend='italic'>Versus</hi> Mansel, +Proleg. Logica, chap. 1—<q>Such negative notions ... imply at once an attempt to +think, and a failure in that attempt.</q> On the contrary, the conception of the Infinite +is perfectly distinguishable from that of the finite, and is both necessary and logically +prior to that of the finite. This is not true of our idea of the universe, of which all we +know is finite and dependent. We therefore regard such utterances as those of Lotze +and Schurman above, and those of Chamberlin and Caird below, as pantheistic in tendency, +although the belief of these writers in divine and human personality saves +them from falling into other errors of pantheism. +</p> + +<p> +Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago: <q>It is not sufficient to the +modern scientific thought to think of a Ruler outside of the universe, nor of a universe +with the Ruler outside. A supreme Being who does not embrace all the activities and +possibilities and potencies of the universe seems something less than the supremest +Being, and a universe with a Ruler outside seems something less than a universe. +And therefore the thought is growing on the minds of scientific thinkers that the +supreme Being is the universal Being, embracing and comprehending all things.</q> +<pb n='255'/><anchor id='Pg255'/> +Caird, Evolution of Religion, 2:62—<q>Religion, if it would continue to exist, must +combine the monotheistic idea with that which it has often regarded as its greatest +enemy, the spirit of pantheism.</q> We grant in reply that religion must appropriate +the element of truth in pantheism, namely, that God is the only substance, ground +and principle of being, but we regard it as fatal to religion to side with pantheism in +its denials of God's transcendence and of God's personality. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That the infinity of God does not involve his identity with <q>the all,</q> +or the sum of existence, nor prevent the coëxistence of derived and finite +beings to which he bears relation. Infinity implies simply that God exists +in no necessary relation to finite things or beings, and that whatever limitation +of the divine nature results from their existence is, on the part of God, +a self-limitation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 113:5, 6—<q>that humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth.</q></emph> It is +involved in God's infinity that there should be no barriers to his self-limitation in creation +and redemption (see page 9, F.). Jacob Boehme said: <q>God is infinite, for God is +all.</q> But this is to make God all imperfection, as well as all perfection. Harris, +Philos. Basis Theism: <q>The relation of the absolute to the finite is not the mathematical +relation of a total to its parts, but it is a dynamical and rational relation.</q> Shedd, +Dogm. Theol., 1:189-191—<q>The infinite is not the total; <q>the all</q> is a pseudo-infinite, +and to assert that it is greater than the simple infinite is the same error that is committed +in mathematics when it is asserted that an infinite number plus a vast finite +number is greater than the simple infinite.</q> Fullerton, Conception of the Infinite, 90—<q>The +Infinite, though it involves unlimited possibility of quantity, is not itself a quantitative +but rather a qualitative conception.</q> Hovey, Studies of Ethics and Religion, +39-47—<q>Any number of finite beings, minds, loves, wills, cannot reveal fully an infinite +Being, Mind, Love, Will. God must be transcendent as well as immanent in the universe, +or he is neither infinite nor an object of supreme worship.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Clarke, Christian Theology, 117—<q>Great as the universe is, God is not limited to it, +wholly absorbed by what he is doing in it, and capable of doing nothing more. God in +the universe is not like the life of the tree in the tree, which does all that it is capable +of in making the tree what it is. God in the universe is rather like the spirit of a man +in his body, which is greater than his body, able to direct his body, and capable of +activities in which his body has no share. God is a free spirit, personal, self-directing, +unexhausted by his present activities.</q> The Persian poet said truly: <q>The world is a +bud from his bower of beauty; the sun is a spark from the light of his wisdom; the +sky is a bubble on the sea of his power.</q> Faber: <q>For greatness which is infinite +makes room For all things in its lap to lie. We should be crushed by a magnificence +Short of infinity. We share in what is infinite; 'tis ours, For we and it alike are Thine. +What I enjoy, great God, by right of Thee, Is more than doubly mine.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) That the infinity of God is to be conceived of as intensive, rather +than as extensive. We do not attribute to God infinite extension, but +rather infinite energy of spiritual life. That which acts up to the measure +of its power is simply natural and physical force. Man rises above nature +by virtue of his reserves of power. But in God the reserve is infinite. +There is a transcendent element in him, which no self-revelation exhausts, +whether creation or redemption, whether law or promise. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Transcendence is not mere outsideness,—it is rather boundless supply within. God is +not infinite by virtue of existing <q>extra flammantia mœnia mundi</q> (Lucretius) or +of filling a space outside of space,—he is rather infinite by being the pure and perfect +Mind that passes beyond all phenomena and constitutes the ground of them. The former +conception of infinity is simply supra-cosmic, the latter alone is properly transcendent; +see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 244. <q>God is the living God, and has not yet +spoken his last word on any subject</q> (G. W. Northrup). God's life <q>operates unspent.</q> +There is <q>ever more to follow.</q> The legend stamped with the Pillars of Hercules +upon the old coins of Spain was <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Ne plus ultra</foreign>—<q>Nothing beyond,</q> but when Columbus +discovered America the legend was fitly changed to <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Plus ultra</foreign>—<q>More beyond.</q> +So the motto of the University of Rochester is <foreign rend='italic'>Meliora</foreign>—<q>Better things.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='256'/><anchor id='Pg256'/> + +<p> +Since God's infinite resources are pledged to aid us, we may, as Emerson bids us, +<q>hitch our wagon to a star,</q> and believe in progress. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: +<q>Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new. That which they +have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.</q> Millet's L'Angelus is a witness +to man's need of God's transcendence. Millet's aim was to paint, not <emph>air</emph> but +<emph>prayer</emph>. We need a God who is not confined to nature. As Moses at the beginning of +his ministry cried, <emph><q>Show me, I pray thee, thy glory</q> (Ex. 33:18)</emph>, so we need marked experiences +at the beginning of the Christian life, in order that we may be living witnesses to the +supernatural. And our Lord promises such manifestations of himself: <emph>John 14:21—<q>I +will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 71:15—<q>My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, And of thy salvation all the day; For I know not the numbers +thereof</q></emph> = it is infinite. <emph>Ps. 89:2—<q>Mercy shall be built up forever</q></emph> = ever growing manifestations +and cycles of fulfilment—first literal, then spiritual. <emph>Ps. 113:4-6—<q rend='pre'>Jehovah is high above all +nations, And his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto Jehovah our God, That hath his seat on high, That +humbleth himself</q></emph> [stoopeth down] <emph><q rend='post'>to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth?</q></emph> <emph>Mal. 2:15—<q>did +he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit?</q></emph> = he might have created many wives +for Adam, though he did actually create but one. In this <emph><q>residue of the Spirit,</q></emph> says Caldwell, +Cities of our Faith, 370, <q>there yet lies latent—as winds lie calm in the air of a +summer noon, as heat immense lies cold and hidden in the mountains of coal—the +blessing and the life of nations, the infinite enlargement of Zion.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Is. 52:10—<q>Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm</q></emph> = nature does not exhaust or entomb God; +nature is the mantle in which he commonly reveals himself; but he is not fettered by +the robe he wears—he can thrust it aside, and make bare his arm in providential interpositions +for earthly deliverance, and in mighty movements of history for the salvation +of the sinner and for the setting up of his own kingdom. See also <emph>John 1:16—<q>of +his fulness we all received, and grace for grace</q></emph> = <q>Each blessing appropriated became the foundation +of a greater blessing. To have realized and used one measure of grace was to +have gained a larger measure in exchange for it χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος</q>; so Westcott, in +Bib. Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. Christ can ever say to the believer, as he said to Nathanael <emph>(John +1:50): <q>thou shalt see greater things than these.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Because God is infinite, he can love each believer as much as if that single soul were +the only one for whom he had to care. Both in providence and in redemption the +whole heart of God is busy with plans for the interest and happiness of the single +Christian. Threatenings do not half reveal God, nor his promises half express the +<emph><q>eternal weight of glory</q> (2 Cor. 4:17)</emph>. Dante, Paradiso, 19:40-63—God <q>Could not upon the +universe so write The impress of his power, but that his word Must still be left in distance +infinite.</q> To <emph><q>limit the Holy One of Israel</q> (Ps. 78:41</emph>—marg.) is falsehood as well as sin. +</p> + +<p> +This attribute of infinity, or of transcendence, qualifies all the other attributes, and +so is the foundation for the representations of majesty and glory as belonging to God +(see <emph>Ex. 33:18</emph>; <emph>Ps. 19:1</emph>; <emph>Is. 6:3</emph>; <emph>Mat. 6:13</emph>; <emph>Acts 7:2</emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:23</emph>; <emph>9:23</emph>; <emph>Heb. 1:3</emph>; <emph>1 Pet. 4:14</emph>; <emph>Rev. 21:23</emph>). +Glory is not itself a divine attribute; it is rather a result—an objective result—of the +exercise of the divine attributes. This glory exists irrespective of the revelation and +recognition of it in the creation (<emph>John 17:5</emph>). Only God can worthily perceive and reverence +his own glory. He does all for his own glory. All religion is founded on the +glory of God. All worship is the result of this immanent quality of the divine nature. +Kedney, Christian Doctrine, 1:360-373, 2:354, apparently conceives of the divine +glory as an eternal material environment of God, from which the universe is fashioned. +This seems to contradict both the spirituality and the infinity of God. God's +infinity implies absolute completeness apart from anything external to himself. We +proceed therefore to consider the attributes involved in infinity. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Of the attributes involved in Infinity, we mention: +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Self-existence.</head> + +<p> +By self-existence we mean +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) That God is <q><hi rend='italic'>causa sui</hi>,</q> having the ground of his existence in himself. +Every being must have the ground of its existence either in or out +of itself. We have the ground of our existence outside of us. God is not +thus dependent. He is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a se</foreign>; hence we speak of the aseity of God. +</p> + +<pb n='257'/><anchor id='Pg257'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God's self-existence is implied in the name <emph><q>Jehovah</q> (Ex. 6:3)</emph> and in the declaration +<q><hi rend='smallcaps'>I am that I am</hi></q> (<emph>Ex. 3:14</emph>), both of which signify that it is God's nature to be. Self-existence +is certainly incomprehensible to us, yet a self-existent person is no greater +mystery than a self-existent thing, such as Herbert Spencer supposes the universe to +be; indeed it is not so great a mystery, for it is easier to derive matter from mind than +to derive mind from matter. See Porter, Human Intellect, 661. Joh. Angelus Silesius: +<q>Gott ist das was Er ist; Ich was Ich durch Ihn bin; Doch kennst du Einen wohl, So +kennst du mich und Ihn.</q> Martineau, Types, 1:302—<q>A <emph>cause</emph> may be eternal, but +nothing that is <emph>caused</emph> can be so.</q> He protests against the phrase <q><foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>causa sui</foreign>.</q> So +Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:338, objects to the phrase <q>God is his own cause,</q> because God +is the uncaused Being. But when we speak of God as <q><foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>causa sui</foreign>,</q> we do not attribute +to him beginning of existence. The phrase means rather that the ground of his existence +is not outside of himself, but that he himself is the living spring of all energy +and of all being. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +But lest this should be misconstrued, we add +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) That God exists by the necessity of his own being. It is his nature +to be. Hence the existence of God is not a contingent but a necessary +existence. It is grounded, not in his volitions, but in his nature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:126, 130, 170, seems to hold that God is primarily +will, so that the essence of God is his act: <q>God's essence does not precede his freedom</q>; +<q>if the essence of God were for him something given, something already present, +the question <q>from whence it was given?</q> could not be evaded; God's essence +must in this case have its origin in something apart from him, and thus the true conception +of God would be entirely swept away.</q> But this implies that truth, reason, +love, holiness, equally with God's essence, are all products of will. If God's essence, +moreover, were his act, it would be in the power of God to annihilate himself. Act +presupposes essence; else there is no God to act. The will by which God exists, and in +virtue of which he is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>causa sui</foreign>, is therefore not will in the sense of volition, but will in +the sense of the whole movement of his active being. With Müller's view Thomasius +and Delitzsch are agreed. For refutation of it, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:63. +</p> + +<p> +God's essence is not his act, not only because this would imply that he could destroy +himself, but also because before willing there must be being. Those who hold God's +essence to be simple activity are impelled to this view by the fear of postulating some +dead thing in God which precedes all exercise of faculty. So Miller, Evolution of +Love, 43—<q>Perfect action, conscious and volitional, is the highest generalization, +the ultimate unit, the unconditioned nature, of infinite Being</q>; <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, God's nature +is subjective action, while external nature is his objective action. A better statement, +however, is that of Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 170—<q>While there is a necessity in the +soul, it becomes controlling only through freedom; and we may say that everyone +must constitute himself a rational soul.... This is absolutely true of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Immutability.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean that the nature, attributes, and will of God are exempt +from all change. Reason teaches us that no change is possible in God, +whether of increase or decrease, progress or deterioration, contraction or +development. All change must be to better or to worse. But God is +absolute perfection, and no change to better is possible. Change to worse +would be equally inconsistent with perfection. No cause for such change +exists, either outside of God or in God himself. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Psalm 102:27—<q>thou art the same</q></emph>; <emph>Mal. 3:6—<q>I, Jehovah, change not</q></emph>; <emph>James 1:17—<q>with whom can be +no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.</q></emph> Spenser, Faerie Queen, Cantos of Mutability, +8:2—<q>Then 'gin I think on that which nature sayde, Of that same time when no more +change shall be, But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayed Upon the pillours of +eternity; For all that moveth doth in change delight, But henceforth all shall rest +eternally With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight; Oh thou great Sabaoth God, +grant me that Sabbath's sight!</q> Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 146, defines immutability +as <q>the constancy and continuity of the divine nature which exists through all the +divine acts as their law and source.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='258'/><anchor id='Pg258'/> + +<p> +The passages of Scripture which seem at first sight to ascribe change to +God are to be explained in one of three ways: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) As illustrations of the varied methods in which God manifests his +immutable truth and wisdom in creation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Mathematical principles receive new application with each successive stage of creation. +The law of cohesion gives place to chemical law, and chemistry yields to vital +forces, but through all these changes there is a divine truth and wisdom which is +unchanging, and which reduces all to rational order. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, +2:140—<q>Immutability is not stereotyped sameness, but impossibility of deviation +by one hair's breadth from the course which is best. A man of great force of +character is continually finding new occasions for the manifestation and application +of moral principle. In God infinite consistency is united with infinite flexibility. +There is no iron-bound impassibility, but rather an infinite originality in him.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) As anthropomorphic representations of the revelation of God's +unchanging attributes in the changing circumstances and varying moral +conditions of creatures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 6:6—<q>it repented Jehovah that he had made man</q></emph>—is to be interpreted in the light of <emph>Num. +23:19—<q>God is not a man, that he should lie: neither the son of man, that he should repent.</q></emph> So <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1 Sam. 15:11</emph> +with <emph>15:29</emph>. God's unchanging holiness requires him to treat the wicked differently +from the righteous. When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must +change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax but hardens the clay,—the +change is not in the sun but in the objects it shines upon. The change in God's +treatment of men is described anthropomorphically, as if it were a change in God himself,—other +passages in close conjunction with the first being given to correct any possible +misapprehension. Threats not fulfilled, as in <emph>Jonah 3:4, 10</emph>, are to be explained by +their conditional nature. Hence God's immutability itself renders it certain that his +love will adapt itself to every varying mood and condition of his children, so as to +guide their steps, sympathize with their sorrows, answer their prayers. God responds +to us more quickly than the mother's face to the changing moods of her babe. Godet, in +The Atonement, 338—<q>God is of all beings the most delicately and infinitely sensitive.</q> +</p> + +<p> +God's immutability is not that of the stone, that has no internal experience, but +rather that of the column of mercury, that rises and falls with every change in the +temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. When a man bicycling against the wind +turns about and goes with the wind instead of going against it, the wind seems to +change, though it is blowing just as it was before. The sinner struggles against the +wind of prevenient grace until he seems to strike against a stone wall. Regeneration +is God's conquest of our wills by his power, and conversion is our beginning to +turn round and to work with God rather than against God. Now we move without +effort, because we have God at our back; <emph>Phil. 2:12, 13—<q>work out your own salvation ... for +it is God who worketh in you.</q></emph> God has not changed, but we have changed; <emph>John 3:8—<q>The wind +bloweth where it will ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit.</q></emph> Jacob's first wrestling with the +Angel was the picture of his lifelong self-will, opposing God; his subsequent wrestling +in prayer was the picture of a consecrated will, working with God (<emph>Gen. 32:24-28</emph>). +We seem to conquer God, but he really conquers us. He seems to change, but it is we +who change after all. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) As describing executions, in time, of purposes eternally existing in +the mind of God. Immutability must not be confounded with immobility. +This would deny all those imperative volitions of God by which he enters +into history. The Scriptures assure us that creation, miracles, incarnation, +regeneration, are immediate acts of God. Immutability is consistent with +constant activity and perfect freedom. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The abolition of the Mosaic dispensation indicates no change in God's plan; it is +rather the execution of his plan. Christ's coming and work were no sudden makeshift, +to remedy unforeseen defects in the Old Testament scheme: Christ came rather in <emph><q>the +fulness of the time</q> (Gal. 4:4)</emph>, to fulfill the <emph><q>counsel</q></emph> of God (<emph>Acts 2:23</emph>). <emph>Gen. 8:1—<q>God remembered +Noah</q></emph> = interposed by special act for Noah's deliverance, showed that he remembered +<pb n='259'/><anchor id='Pg259'/> +Noah. While we change, God does not. There is no fickleness or inconstancy in +him. Where we once found him, there we may find him still, as Jacob did at Bethel +(<emph>Gen. 35:1, 6, 9</emph>). Immutability is a consolation to the faithful, but a terror to God's enemies +(<emph>Mal. 3:6—<q>I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 7:11—<q>a God that +hath indignation every day</q></emph>). It is consistent with constant activity in nature and in grace +(<emph>John 5:17—<q>My Father worketh even until now, and I work</q></emph>; <emph>Job 23:13, 14—<q>he is in one mind, and who can +turn him?... For he performeth that which is appointed for me: and many such things are with him</q></emph>). If +God's immutability were immobility, we could not worship him, any more than the +ancient Greeks were able to worship Fate. Arthur Hugh Clough: <q>It fortifies my +soul to know, That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, +Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou +dost not fall.</q> On this attribute see Charnock, Attributes, 1:310-362; Dorner, Gesammelte +Schriften, 188-377; translated in Bib. Sac., 1879:28-59, 209-223. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Unity.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) that the divine nature is undivided and indivisible +(<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>unus</foreign>); and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) that there is but one infinite and perfect Spirit (<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>unicus</foreign>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Deut. 6:4—<q>Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 44:6—<q>besides me there is no God</q></emph>; +<emph>John 5:44—<q>the only God</q></emph>; <emph>17:3—<q>the only true God</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 8:4—<q>no God but one</q></emph>; <emph>1 Tim. 1:17—<q>the only +God</q></emph>; <emph>6:15—<q>the blessed and only Potentate</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 4:5, 6—<q>one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and +Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.</q></emph> When we read in Mason, Faith of the +Gospel, 25—<q>The unity of God is not numerical, denying the existence of a second; it +is integral, denying the possibility of division,</q> we reply that the unity of God is +both,—it includes both the numerical and the integral elements. +</p> + +<p> +Humboldt, in his Cosmos, has pointed out that the unity and creative agency of the +heavenly Father have given unity to the order of nature, and so have furnished the +impulse to modern physical science. Our faith in a <q>universe</q> rests historically upon +the demonstration of God's unity which has been given by the incarnation and death +of Christ. Tennyson, In Memoriam: <q>That God who ever lives and loves, One God, one +law, one element, And one far off divine event To which the whole creation moves.</q> +See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 184-187. Alexander McLaren: <q>The heathen +have many gods because they have no one that satisfies hungry hearts or corresponds +to their unconscious ideals. Completeness is not reached by piecing together many +fragments. The wise merchantman will gladly barter a sack full of <q>goodly pearls</q> +for the one of great price. Happy they who turn away from the many to embrace +the One!</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Against polytheism, tritheism, or dualism, we may urge that the notion +of two or more Gods is self-contradictory; since each limits the other and +destroys his godhood. In the nature of things, infinity and absolute perfection +are possible only to one. It is unphilosophical, moreover, to +assume the existence of two or more Gods, when one will explain all the +facts. The unity of God is, however, in no way inconsistent with the doctrine +of the Trinity; for, while this doctrine holds to the existence of +hypostatical, or personal, distinctions in the divine nature, it also holds +that this divine nature is numerically and eternally one. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Polytheism is man's attempt to rid himself of the notion of responsibility to one +moral Lawgiver and Judge by dividing up his manifestations, and attributing them +to separate wills. So Force, in the terminology of some modern theorizers, is only +God with his moral attributes left out. <q>Henotheism</q> (says Max Müller, Origin and +Growth of Religion, 285) <q>conceives of each individual god as unlimited by the power +of other gods. Each is felt, at the time, as supreme and absolute, notwithstanding the +limitations which to our minds must arise from his power being conditioned by the +power of all the gods.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Even polytheism cannot rest in the doctrine of many gods, as an exclusive and all-comprehending +explanation of the universe. The Greeks believed in one supreme +Fate that ruled both gods and men. Aristotle: <q>God, though he is one, has many +names, because he is called according to states into which he is ever entering anew.</q> +The doctrine of God's unity should teach men to give up hope of any other God, to +<pb n='260'/><anchor id='Pg260'/> +reveal himself to them or to save them. They are in the hands of the one and only +God, and therefore there is but one law, one gospel, one salvation; one doctrine, one +duty, one destiny. We cannot rid ourselves of responsibility by calling ourselves +mere congeries of impressions or mere victims of circumstance. As God is one, so +the soul made in God's image is one also. On the origin of polytheism, see articles by +Tholuck, in Bib. Repos., 2:84, 246, 441, and Max Müller, Science of Religion, 124. +</p> + +<p> +Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 83—<q>The Alpha and Omega, the beginning +and end and sum and meaning of Being, is but One. We who believe in a personal +God do not believe in a limited God. We do not mean one more, a bigger specimen of +existences, amongst existences. Rather, we mean that the reality of existence itself +is personal: that Power, that Law, that Life, that Thought, that Love, are ultimately, +in their very reality, identified in one supreme, and that necessarily a personal Existence. +Now such supreme Being cannot be multiplied: it is incapable of a plural: it +cannot be a generic term. There cannot be more than one all-inclusive, more than +one ultimate, more than one God. Nor has Christian thought, at any point, for any +moment, dared or endured the least approach to such a thought or phrase as <q>two +Gods.</q> If the Father is God, and the Son God, they are both the same God wholly, +unreservedly. God is a particular, an unique, not a general, term. Each is not only +God, but is the very same <q>singularis unicus et totus Deus.</q> They are not both <emph>generically</emph> +God, as though <q>God</q> could be an attribute or predicate; but both <emph>identically</emph> +God, the God, the one all-inclusive, indivisible, God.... If the thought that wishes +to be orthodox had less tendency to become tritheistic, the thought that claims to be +free would be less Unitarian.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Third Division.—Perfection, and attributes therein involved.</head> + +<p> +By perfection we mean, not mere quantitative completeness, but qualitative +excellence. The attributes involved in perfection are moral attributes. +Right action among men presupposes a perfect moral organization, a normal +state of intellect, affection and will. So God's activity presupposes a +principle of intelligence, of affection, of volition, in his inmost being, and +the existence of a worthy object for each of these powers of his nature. +But in eternity past there is nothing existing outside or apart from God. +He must find, and he does find, the sufficient object of intellect, affection, +and will, in himself. There is a self-knowing, a self-loving, a self-willing, +which constitute his absolute perfection. The consideration of the immanent +attributes is, therefore, properly concluded with an account of that +truth, love, and holiness, which render God entirely sufficient to himself. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 5:48—<q>Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 12:2—<q>perfect will +of God</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 1:28—<q>perfect in Christ</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Deut. 32:4—<q>The Rock, his work is perfect</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 18:30—<q>As +for God, his way is perfect.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Truth.</head> + +<p> +By truth we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which +God's being and God's knowledge eternally conform to each other. +</p> + +<p> +In further explanation we remark: +</p> + +<p> +A. Negatively: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The immanent truth of God is not to be confounded with that +veracity and faithfulness which partially manifest it to creatures. These +are transitive truth, and they presuppose the absolute and immanent +attribute. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Deut 32:4—<q>A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he</q></emph>; <emph>John 17:3—<q>the only true God</q></emph> +(ἀληθινόν); <emph>1 John 5:20—<q>we know him that is true</q></emph> (τὸν ἀληθινόν). In both these passages +ἀληθινός describes God as the genuine, the real, as distinguished from ἀληθής, the veracious +(compare <emph>John 6:32—<q>the true bread</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 8:2—<q>the true tabernacle</q></emph>). <emph>John 14:6—<q>I am +... the truth.</q></emph> As <emph><q>I am ... the life</q></emph> signifies, not <q>I am the living one,</q> but rather <q>I +<pb n='261'/><anchor id='Pg261'/> +am he who is life and the source of life,</q> so <q><emph>I am ... the truth</emph></q> signifies, not <q>I am the +truthful one,</q> but <q>I am he who is truth and the source of truth</q>—in other words, +truth of being, not merely truth of expression. So <emph>1 John 5:7—<q>the Spirit is the truth.</q></emph> +<hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> 1 Esdras 1:38—<q>The truth abideth and is forever strong, and it liveth and ruleth +forever</q> = personal truth? See Godet on <emph>John 1:18</emph>; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:181. +</p> + +<p> +Truth is God perfectly revealed and known. It may be likened to the electric current +which manifests and measures the power of the dynamo. There is no realm of +truth apart from the world-ground, just as there is no law of nature that is independent +of the Author of nature. While we know ourselves only partially, God knows himself +fully. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:192—<q>In the life of God there are +no unrealized possibilities. The presupposition of all our knowledge and activity is +that absolute and eternal unity of knowing and being which is only another expression +for the nature of God. In one sense, he is all reality, and the only reality, whilst all +finite existence is but a <emph>becoming</emph>, which never <emph>is</emph>.</q> Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, +57-63—<q>Truth is reality revealed. Jesus is the Truth, because in him the sum of the +qualities hidden in God is presented and revealed to the world, God's nature in terms +of an active force and in relation to his rational creation.</q> This definition however +ignores the fact that God is truth, apart from and before all creation. As an immanent +attribute, truth implies a conformity of God's knowledge to God's being, which +antedates the universe; see B. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) below. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Truth in God is not a merely active attribute of the divine nature. +God is truth, not only in the sense that he is the being who truly knows, +but also in the sense that he is the truth that is known. The passive precedes +the active; truth of being precedes truth of knowing. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Plato: <q>Truth is his (God's) body, and light his shadow.</q> Hollaz (quoted in Thomasius, +Christi Person und Werk, 1:137) says that <q>truth is the conformity of the divine +essence with the divine intellect.</q> See Gerhard, loc. ii:152; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2:272, +279; 3:193—<q>Distinguish in God the personal self-consciousness [spirituality, personality—see +pages 252, 253] from the unfolding of this in the divine knowledge, which can +have no other object but God himself. So far, now, as self-knowing in God is absolutely +identical with his being is he the absolutely true. For truth is the knowledge +which answers to the being, and the being which answers to the knowledge.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, World and Individual, 1:270—<q>Truth either may mean that about which +we judge, <emph>or</emph> it may mean the correspondence between our ideas and their objects.</q> +God's truth is both object of his knowledge and knowledge of his object. Miss Clara +French, The Dramatic Action and Motive of King John: <q>You spell Truth with a +capital, and make it an independent existence to be sought for and absorbed; but, +unless truth is God, what can it do for man? It is only a personality that can touch a +personality.</q> So we assent to the poet's declaration that <q>Truth, crushed to earth, +shall rise again,</q> only because Truth is personal. Christ, the Revealer of God, is the +Truth. He is not simply the medium but also the object of all knowledge; <emph>Eph. 4:20—<q>ye +did not so learn Christ</q></emph> = ye knew more than the doctrine about Christ,—ye knew Christ +himself; <emph>John 17:3—<q>this is life eternal that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou +didst send, even Jesus Christ.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Positively: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) All truth among men, whether mathematical, logical, moral, or +religious, is to be regarded as having its foundation in this immanent truth +of the divine nature and as disclosing facts in the being of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There is a higher Mind than our mind. No apostle can say <q>I am the truth,</q> though +each of them can say <q>I speak the truth.</q> Truth is not a scientific or moral, but a +substantial, thing—<q>nicht Schulsache, sondern Lebenssache.</q> Here is the dignity of +education, that knowledge of truth is knowledge of God. The laws of mathematics are +disclosures to us, not of the divine reason merely, for this would imply truth outside +of and before God, but of the divine nature. J. W. A. Stewart: <q>Science is possible +because God is scientific.</q> Plato: <q>God geometrizes.</q> Bowne: <q>The heavens are +crystalized mathematics.</q> The statement that two and two make four, or that virtue +is commendable and vice condemnable, expresses an everlasting principle in the being +of God. Separate statements of truth are inexplicable apart from the total revelation +of truth, and this total revelation is inexplicable apart from One who is truth and who +<pb n='262'/><anchor id='Pg262'/> +is thus revealed. The separate electric lights in our streets are inexplicable apart +from the electric current which throbs through the wires, and this electric current is +itself inexplicable apart from the hidden dynamo whose power it exactly expresses +and measures. The separate lights of truth are due to the realizing agency of the +Holy Spirit; the one unifying current which they partially reveal is the outgoing +work of Christ, the divine Logos; Christ is the one and only Revealer of him who +dwells <emph><q>in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see</q> (1 Tim. 6:16)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Prof. H. E. Webster began his lectures <q>by assuming the Lord Jesus Christ <emph>and</emph> the +multiplication-table.</q> But this was tautology, because the Lord Jesus Christ, the Truth, +the only revealer of God, includes the multiplication-table. So Wendt, Teaching of +Jesus, 1:257; 2:202, unduly narrows the scope of Christ's revelation when he maintains +that with Jesus truth is not the truth which corresponds to reality but rather the +right conduct which corresponds to the duty prescribed by God. <emph><q>Grace and truth</q> (John +1:17)</emph> then means the favor of God and the righteousness which God approves. To +understand Jesus is impossible without being ethically like him. He is king of truth, +in that he reveals this righteousness, and finds obedience for it among men. This +ethical aspect of the truth, we would reply, important as it is, does not exclude but +rather requires for its complement and presupposition that other aspect of the truth +as the reality to which all being must conform and the conformity of all being to that +reality. Since Christ is the truth of God, we are successful in our search for truth +only as we recognize him. Whether all roads lead to Rome depends upon which way +your face is turned. Follow a point of land out into the sea, and you find only ocean. +With the back turned upon Jesus Christ all following after truth leads only into mist +and darkness. Aristotle's ideal man was <q>a hunter after truth.</q> But truth can +never be found disjoined from love, nor can the loveless seeker discern it. <q>For the +loving worm within its clod Were diviner than a loveless God</q> (Robert Browning). +Hence Christ can say: <emph>John 18:37—<q>Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) This attribute therefore constitutes the principle and guarantee of +all revelation, while it shows the possibility of an eternal divine self-contemplation +apart from and before all creation. It is to be understood +only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +To all this doctrine, however, a great school of philosophers have opposed themselves. +Duns Scotus held that God's will made truth as well as right. Descartes said +that God could have made it untrue that the radii of a circle are all equal. Lord Bacon +said that Adam's sin consisted in seeking a good in itself, instead of being content with +the merely empirical good. Whedon, On the Will, 316—<q>Infinite wisdom and infinite +holiness consist in, and result from, God's volitions eternally.</q> We reply that, to make +truth and good matters of mere will, instead of regarding them as characteristics of +God's being, is to deny that anything is true or good in itself. If God can make truth +to be falsehood, and injustice to be justice, then God is indifferent to truth or falsehood, +to good or evil, and he ceases thereby to be God. Truth is not arbitrary,—it is +matter of being—the being of God. There are no regulative principles of knowledge +which are not transcendental also. God knows and wills truth, because he is +truth. Robert Browning, A Soul's Tragedy, 214—<q>Were't not for God, I mean, what +hope of truth—Speaking truth, hearing truth—would stay with Man?</q> God's will +does not make truth, but truth rather makes God's will. God's perfect knowledge in +eternity past has an object. That object must be himself. He is the truth Known, as +well as the truthful Knower. But a perfect objective must be personal. The doctrine +of the Trinity is the necessary complement to the doctrine of the Attributes. Shedd, +Dogm. Theol., 1:183—<q>The pillar of cloud becomes a pillar of fire.</q> See A. H. Strong, +Christ in Creation, 102-112. +</p> + +<p> +On the question whether it is ever right to deceive, see Paine, Ethnic Trinities, 300-339. +Plato said that the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians. The +rulers of the state may lie for the public good, but private people not: <q>officiosum +mendacium.</q> It is better to say that deception is justifiable only where the person +deceived has, like a wild beast or a criminal or an enemy in war, put himself out of +human society and deprived himself of the right to truth. Even then deception is a +sad necessity which witnesses to an abnormal condition of human affairs. With James +Martineau, when asked what answer he would give to an intending murderer when +truth would mean death, we may say: <q>I suppose I should tell an untruth, and then +should be sorry for it forever after.</q> On truth as an attribute of God, see Bib. Sac., +Oct. 1877:735; Finney, Syst. Theol., 661; Janet, Final Causes, 416. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='263'/><anchor id='Pg263'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Love.</head> + +<p> +By love we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which +God is eternally moved to self-communication. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>1 John 4:8—<q>God is love</q></emph>; <emph>3:16—<q>hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us</q></emph>; <emph>John +17:24—<q>thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 15:30—<q>the love of the Spirit.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +In further explanation we remark: +</p> + +<p> +A. Negatively: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The immanent love of God is not to be confounded with mercy and +goodness toward creatures. These are its manifestations, and are to be +denominated transitive love. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:138, 139—<q>God's regard for the happiness of +his creatures flows from this self-communicating attribute of his nature. Love, in the +true sense of the word, is living good-will, with impulses to impartation and union; +self-communication (bonum communicativum sui); devotion, merging of the <emph>ego</emph> in +another, in order to penetrate, fill, bless this other with itself, and in this other, as in +another self, to possess itself, without giving up itself or losing itself. Love is therefore +possible only between persons, and always presupposes personality. Only as +Trinity has God love, absolute love; because as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost he stands +in perfect self-impartation, self-devotion, and communion with himself.</q> Julius +Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:136—<q>God has in himself the eternal and wholly adequate object +of his love, independently of his relation to the world.</q> +</p> + +<p> +In the Greek mythology, Eros was one of the oldest and yet one of the youngest of +the gods. So Dante makes the oldest angel to be the youngest, because nearest to God +the fountain of life. In <emph>1 John 2:7, 8, <q>the old commandment</q></emph> of love is evermore <q><emph>a new commandment</emph>,</q> +because it reflects this eternal attribute of God. <q>There is a love unstained by +selfishness, Th' outpouring tide of self-abandonment, That loves to love, and deems its +preciousness Repaid in loving, though no sentiment Of love returned reward its sacrament; +Nor stays to question what the loved one will, But hymns its overture with +blessings immanent; Rapt and sublimed by love's exalting thrill, Loves on, through +frown or smile, divine, immortal still.</q> Clara Elizabeth Ward: <q>If I could gather +every look of love, That ever any human creature wore, And all the looks that joy is +mother of, All looks of grief that mortals ever bore, And mingle all with God-begotten +grace, Methinks that I should see the Savior's face.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Love is not the all-inclusive ethical attribute of God. It does not +include truth, nor does it include holiness. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, 352, very properly denies that benevolence is the all-inclusive +virtue. Justness and Truth, he remarks, are not reducible to benevolence. +In a review of Ladd's work in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1903:185, C. M. Mead adds: <q>He comes to +the conclusion that it is impossible to resolve all the virtues into the generic one of +love or benevolence without either giving a definition of benevolence which is unwarranted +and virtually nullifies the end aimed at, or failing to recognize certain virtues +which are as genuinely virtues as benevolence itself. Particularly is it argued that the +virtues of the will (courage, constancy, temperance), and the virtues of judgment +(wisdom, justness, trueness), get no recognition in this attempt to subsume all virtues +under the one virtue of love. 'The unity of the virtues is due to the unity of a +personality, in active and varied relations with other persons' (361). If benevolence +means wishing <emph>happiness</emph> to all men, then happiness is made the ultimate good, and +eudæmonism is accepted as the true ethical philosophy. But if, on the other hand, in +order to avoid this conclusion, benevolence is made to mean wishing the highest +<emph>welfare</emph> to all men, and the highest welfare is conceived as a life of virtue, then we +come to the rather inane conclusion that the essence of virtue is to wish that men +may be virtuous.</q> See also art. by Vos, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-37. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Nor is God's love a mere regard for being in general, irrespective +of its moral quality. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Jonathan Edwards, in his treatise On the Nature of Virtue, defines virtue as regard +for being in general. He considers that God's love is first of all directed toward himself +as having the greatest quantity of being, and only secondarily directed toward +<pb n='264'/><anchor id='Pg264'/> +his creatures whose quantity of being is infinitesimal as compared with his. But we +reply that being in general is far too abstract a thing to elicit or justify love. Charles +Hodge said truly that, if obligation is primarily due to being in general, then there +is no more virtue in loving God than there is in loving Satan. Virtue, we hold, must +consist, not in love for being in general, but in love for good being, that is, in love for +God as holy. Love has no moral value except as it is placed upon a right object and is +proportioned to the worth of that object. <q>Love of being in general</q> makes virtue +an irrational thing, because it has no standard of conduct. Virtue is rather the love +of God as right and as the source of right. +</p> + +<p> +G. S. Lee, The Shadow-cross, 38—<q>God is love, and law is the way he loves us. But +it is also true that God is law, and love is the way he rules us.</q> Clarke, Christian +Theology, 88—<q>Love is God's desire to impart himself, and so all good, to other persons, +and to possess them for his own spiritual fellowship.</q> The intent to communicate +himself is the intent to communicate holiness, and this is the <q>terminus ad +quem</q> of God's administration. Drummond, in his Ascent of Man, shows that Love +began with the first cell of life. Evolution is not a tale of battle, but a love-story. +We gradually pass from selfism to otherism. Evolution is the object of nature, and +altruism is the object of evolution. Man = nutrition, looking to his own things; +Woman = reproduction, looking to the things of others. But the greatest of these is +love. The mammalia = the mothers, last and highest, care for others. As the mother +gives love, so the father gives righteousness. Law, once a latent thing, now becomes +active. The father makes a sort of conscience for those beneath him. Nature, like +Raphael, is producing a Holy Family. +</p> + +<p> +Jacob Boehme: <q>Throw open and throw out thy heart. For unless thou dost +exercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man in the world, thy self-love, +thy pride, thy envy, thy distaste, thy dislike, will still have dominion over thee.... +In the name and in the strength of God, love all men. Love thy neighbor as thyself, +and do to thy neighbor as thou doest to thyself. And do it now. For now is the +accepted time, and now is the day of salvation.</q> These expressions are scriptural and +valuable, if they are interpreted ethically, and are understood to inculcate the supreme +duty of loving the Holy One, of being holy as he is holy, and of seeking to bring all +intelligent beings into conformity with his holiness. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) God's love is not a merely emotional affection, proceeding from +sense or impulse, nor is it prompted by utilitarian considerations. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Of the two words for love in the N. T., φιλέω designates an emotional affection, +which is not and cannot be commanded (<emph>John 11:36—<q>Behold how he loved him!</q></emph>), while ἀγαπάω +expresses a rational and benevolent affection which springs from deliberate choice +(<emph>John 3:16—<q>God so loved the world</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 19:19—<q>Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself</q></emph>; <emph>5:44—<q>Love +your enemies</q></emph>). Thayer, N. T. Lex., 653—Ἀγαπᾶν <q>properly denotes a love founded in +admiration, veneration, esteem, like the Lat. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>diligere</foreign>, to be kindly disposed to one, +to wish one well; but φιλεîν denotes an inclination prompted by sense and emotion, +Lat. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>amare</foreign>.... Hence men are said ἀγαπᾶν God, not φιλεîν.</q> In this word ἀγάπη, +when used of God, it is already implied that God loves, not for what he can get, but +for what he can give. The rationality of his love involves moreover a subordination +of the emotional element to a higher law than itself, namely, that of holiness. Even +God's self-love must have a reason and norm in the perfections of his own being. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Positively: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The immanent love of God is a rational and voluntary affection, +grounded in perfect reason and deliberate choice. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 3:277—<q>Love is will, aiming either at the +appropriation of an object, or at the enrichment of its existence, because moved by a +feeling of its worth.... Love is to persons; it is a constant will; it aims at the promotion +of the other's personal end, whether known or conjectured; it takes up the other's +personal end and makes it part of his own. Will, as love, does not give itself up for +the other's sake; it aims at closest fellowship with the other for a common end.</q> A. H. +Strong, Christ in Creation, 388-405—<q>Love is not rightfully independent of the other +faculties, but is subject to regulation and control.... We sometimes say that religion +consists in love.... It would be more strictly true to say that religion consists in a +new direction of our love, a turning of the current toward God which once flowed +<pb n='265'/><anchor id='Pg265'/> +toward self.... Christianity rectifies the affections, before excessive, impulsive, lawless,—gives +them worthy and immortal objects, regulates their intensity in some due +proportion to the value of the things they rest upon, and teaches the true methods of +their manifestation. In true religion love forms a copartnership with reason.... +God's love is no arbitrary, wild, passionate torrent of emotion ... and we become +like God by bringing our emotions, sympathies, affections, under the dominion of reason +and conscience.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Since God's love is rational, it involves a subordination of the +<emph>emotional</emph> element to a higher law than itself, namely, that of truth and +holiness. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Phil. 1:9—<q>And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment.</q></emph> +True love among men illustrates God's love. It merges self in another instead of +making that other an appendage to self. It seeks the other's true good, not merely his +present enjoyment or advantage. Its aim is to realize the divine idea in that other, and +therefore it is exercised for God's sake and in the strength which God supplies. Hence +it is a love for holiness, and is under law to holiness. So God's love takes into account +the highest interests, and makes infinite sacrifice to secure them. For the sake of saving +a world of sinners, God <emph><q>spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all</q> (Rom. 8:32)</emph>, and +<emph><q>Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all</q> (Is. 53:6)</emph>. Love requires a rule or standard for its +regulation. This rule or standard is the holiness of God. So once more we see that +love cannot include holiness, because it is subject to the law of holiness. Love desires +only the best for its object, and the best is <emph>God</emph>. The golden rule does not bid us give +what others desire, but what they need: <emph>Rom. 15:2—<q>Let each one of us please his neighbor for that +which is good, unto edifying.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The immanent love of God therefore requires and finds a perfect +standard in his own holiness, and a personal object in the image of his own +infinite perfections. It is to be understood only in the light of the doctrine +of the Trinity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As there is a higher Mind than our mind, so there is a greater Heart than our heart. +God is not simply the loving One—he is also the Love that is loved. There is an infinite +life of sensibility and affection in God. God has feeling, and in an infinite degree. +But feeling alone is not love. Love implies not merely receiving but giving, not merely +emotion but impartation. So the love of God is shown in his eternal giving. <emph>James 1:5—<q>God, +who giveth,</q></emph> or <emph><q>the giving God</q></emph> (τοῦ διδόντος Θεοῦ) = giving is not an episode in his +being—it is his nature to give. And not only to <emph>give</emph>, but to give <emph>himself</emph>. This he +does eternally in the self-communications of the Trinity; this he does transitively and +temporally in his giving of himself for us in Christ, and to us in the Holy Spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Jonathan Edwards, Essay on Trinity (ed. G. P. Fisher), 79—<q>That in John God is +love shows that there are more persons than one in the Deity, for it shows love to be +essential and necessary to the Deity, so that his nature consists in it, and this supposes +that there is an eternal and necessary object, because all love respects another that is +the beloved. By love here the apostle certainly means something beside that which is +commonly called self-love: that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of an +exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love the apostle is speaking +of.</q> When Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 226-239, makes the first characteristic of +love to be self-affirmation, and when Dorner, Christian Ethics, 73, makes self-assertion +an essential part of love, they violate linguistic usage by including under love what +properly belongs to holiness. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The immanent love of God constitutes a ground of the divine blessedness. +Since there is an infinite and perfect object of love, as well as of +knowledge and will, in God's own nature, the existence of the universe is +not necessary to his serenity and joy. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Blessedness is not itself a divine attribute; it is rather a result of the exercise of the +divine attributes. It is a subjective result of this exercise, as glory is an objective +result. Perfect faculties, with perfect objects for their exercise, ensure God's blessedness. +But love is especially its source. <emph>Acts 20:35—<q>It is more blessed to give than to receive.</q></emph> +Happiness (hap, happen) is grounded in circumstances; blessedness, in character. +<pb n='266'/><anchor id='Pg266'/> +Love precedes creation and is the ground of creation. Its object therefore cannot be +the universe, for that does not exist, and, if it did exist, could not be a proper object +of love for the infinite God. The only sufficient object of his love is the image of his +own perfections, for that alone is equal to himself. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 264—<q>Man +most truly realizes his own nature, when he is ruled by rational, self-forgetful +love. He cannot help inferring that the highest thing in the individual consciousness +is the dominant thing in the universe at large.</q> Here we may assent, if we remember +that not the love itself but that which is loved must be the dominant thing, and we +shall see that to be not love but holiness. +</p> + +<p> +Jones, Robert Browning, 219—<q>Love is for Browning the highest, richest conception +man can form. It is our idea of that which is perfect; we cannot even imagine +anything better. And the idea of evolution necessarily explains the world as the return +of the highest to itself. The universe is homeward bound.... All things are potentially +spirit, and all the phenomena of the world are manifestations of love.... Man's +reason is not, but man's love is, a direct emanation from the inmost being of God</q> +(345). Browning should have applied to truth and holiness the same principle which +he recognized with regard to love. But we gratefully accept his dicta: <q>He that created +love, shall not he love?... God! thou art Love! I build my faith on that.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The love of God involves also the possibility of divine suffering, +and the suffering on account of sin which holiness necessitates on the part +of God is itself the atonement. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Christ is <emph><q>the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world</q> (Rev. 13:8);</emph> <emph>1 Pet. 1:19, 20—<q>precious +blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ: who was foreknown indeed +before the foundation of the world.</q></emph> While holiness requires atonement, love provides it. The +blessedness of God is consistent with sorrow for human misery and sin. God is passible, +or capable of suffering. The permission of moral evil in the decree of creation was +at cost to God. Scripture attributes to him emotions of grief and anger at human sin +(<emph>Gen. 6:6—<q>it grieved him at his heart</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:18—<q>wrath of God</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 4:30—<q>grieve not the Holy Spirit +of God</q></emph>); painful sacrifice in the gift of Christ (<emph>Rom. 8:32—<q>spared not his own son</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Gen. 22:16—<q>hast +not withheld thy son</q></emph>) and participation in the suffering of his people (<emph>Is. 63:9—<q>in +all their affliction he was afflicted</q></emph>); Jesus Christ in his sorrow and sympathy, his tears and +agony, is the revealer of God's feelings toward the race, and we are urged to follow in +his steps, that we may be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. We cannot, +indeed, conceive of love without self-sacrifice, nor of self-sacrifice without suffering. +It would seem, then, that as immutability is consistent with imperative volitions in +human history, so the blessedness of God may be consistent with emotions of sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +But does God feel in proportion to his greatness, as the mother suffers more than the +sick child whom she tends? Does God suffer infinitely in every suffering of his creatures? +We must remember that God is infinitely greater than his creation, and that +he sees all human sin and woe as part of his great plan. We are entitled to attribute to +him only such passibleness as is consistent with infinite perfection. In combining passibleness +with blessedness, then, we must allow blessedness to be the controlling element, +for our fundamental idea of God is that of absolute perfection. Martensen, +Dogmatics, 101—<q>This limitation is swallowed up in the inner life of perfection which +God lives, in total independence of his creation, and in triumphant prospect of the +fulfilment of his great designs. We may therefore say with the old theosophic writers: +<q>In the outer chambers is sadness, but in the inner ones is unmixed joy.</q></q> Christ was +<q><emph>anointed ... with the oil of gladness above his fellows,</emph></q> and <emph><q>for the joy that was set before him endured the +cross</q> (Heb. 1:9; 12:2)</emph>. Love rejoices even in pain, when this brings good to those beloved. +<q>Though round its base the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its +head.</q> +</p> + +<p> +In George Adam Smith's Life of Henry Drummond, 11, Drummond cries out after +hearing the confessions of men who came to him: <q>I am sick of the sins of these men! +How can God bear it?</q> Simon, Reconciliation, 338-343, shows that before the incarnation, +the Logos was a sufferer from the sins of men. This suffering however was kept in +check and counterbalanced by his consciousness as a factor in the Godhead, and by the +clear knowledge that men were themselves the causes of this suffering. After he +became incarnate he suffered without knowing whence all the suffering came. He +had a subconscious life into which were interwoven elements due to the sinful conduct +of the race whose energy was drawn from himself and with which in addition he +had organically united himself. If this is limitation, it is also self-limitation which +<pb n='267'/><anchor id='Pg267'/> +Christ could have avoided by not creating, preserving, and redeeming mankind. We +rejoice in giving away a daughter in marriage, even though it costs pain. The highest +blessedness in the Christian is coincident with agony for the souls of others. We partake +of Christ's joy only when we know the fellowship of his sufferings. Joy and +sorrow can coëxist, like Greek fire, that burns under water. +</p> + +<p> +Abbé Gratry, La Morale et la Loi de l'Histoire, 165, 166—<q>What! Do you really +suppose that the personal God, free and intelligent, loving and good, who knows every +detail of human torture, and hears every sigh—this God who sees, who loves as we do, +and more than we do—do you believe that he is present and looks pitilessly on what +breaks your heart, and what to him must be the spectacle of Satan reveling in the +blood of humanity? History teaches us that men so feel for sufferers that they +have been drawn to die with them, so that their own executioners have become the +next martyrs. And yet you represent God, the absolute goodness, as alone impassible? +It is here that our evangelical faith comes in. Our God was made man to suffer +and to die! Yes, here is the true God. He has suffered from the beginning in all who +have suffered. He has been hungry in all who have hungered. He has been immolated +in all and with all who have offered up their lives. He is the Lamb slain from the +foundation of the world.</q> Similarly Alexander Vinet, Vital Christianity, 240, remarks +that <q>The suffering God is not simply the teaching of modern divines. It is a New +Testament thought, and it is one that answers all the doubts that arise at the sight of +human suffering. To know that God is suffering with it makes that suffering more +awful, but it gives strength and life and hope, for we know that, if God is in it, suffering +is the road to victory. If he shares our suffering we shall share his crown,</q> and +we can say with the <emph>Psalmist, 68:19—<q>Blessed be God, who daily beareth our burden, even the God who is +our salvation,</q></emph> and with <emph>Isaiah 63:9—<q>In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved +them.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Borden P. Bowne, Atonement: <q>Something like this work of grace was a moral +necessity with God. It was an awful responsibility that was taken when our human +race was launched with its fearful possibilities of good and evil. God thereby put +himself under infinite obligation to care for his human family; and reflections on his +position as Creator and Ruler, instead of removing, only make more manifest this +obligation. So long as we conceive God as sitting apart in supreme ease and self-satisfaction, +he is not <emph>love</emph> at all, but only a reflection of our selfishness and vulgarity. +So long as we conceive him as bestowing blessing upon us out of his infinite fulness, +but at no real cost to himself, he sinks below the moral heroes of our race. There is +ever a higher thought possible, until we see God taking the world upon his heart, +entering into the fellowship of our sorrow, and becoming the supreme burden bearer +and leader in self-sacrifice. Then only are the possibilities of grace and condescension +and love and moral heroism filled up, so that nothing higher remains. And the work +of Christ, so far as it was a historical event, must be viewed not merely as a piece of +history, but also as a manifestation of that cross which was hidden in the divine love +from the foundation of the world, and which is involved in the existence of the human +world at all.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 264—<q>The eternal resolution that, if the world +<emph>will</emph> be tragic, it <emph>shall</emph> still, in Satan's despite, be spiritual, is the very essence of the +eternal joy of that World-Spirit of whose wisdom ours is but a fragmentary reflection.... +When you suffer, your sufferings are God's sufferings,—not his external work nor +his external penalty, nor the fruit of his neglect, but identically his own personal woe. +In you God himself suffers, precisely as you do, and has all your reason for overcoming +this grief.</q> Henry N. Dodge, Christus Victor: <q>O Thou, that from eternity Upon thy +wounded heart hast borne Each pang and cry of misery Wherewith our human hearts +are torn, Thy love upon the grievous cross Doth glow, the beacon-light of time, Forever +sharing pain and loss With every man in every clime. How vast, how vast Thy +sacrifice, As ages come and ages go, Still waiting till it shall suffice To draw the last +cold heart and slow!</q> +</p> + +<p> +On the question, Is God passible? see Bennett Tyler, Sufferings of Christ; A Layman, +Sufferings of Christ; Woods, Works, 1:299-317; Bib. Sac., 11:744; 17:422-424; Emmons, +Works, 4:201-208; Fairbairn, Place of Christ, 483-487; Bushnell, Vic. Sacrifice, 59-93; +Kedney, Christ. Doctrine Harmonized, 1:185-245; Edward Beecher, Concord of Ages, +81-204; Young, Life and Light of Men, 20-43, 147-150; Schaff, Hist. Christ. Church, +2:191; Crawford, Fatherhood of God, 43, 44; Anselm, Proslogion, cap. 8; Upton, Hibbert +Lectures, 268; John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:117, 118, 137-142. <hi rend='italic'>Per +<pb n='268'/><anchor id='Pg268'/> +contra</hi>, see Shedd, Essays and Addresses, 277, 279 note; Woods, in Lit. and Theol. Rev., +1834:43-61; Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, 1:201. On the Biblical conception +of Love in general, see article by James Orr, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Holiness.</head> + +<p> +Holiness is self-affirming purity. In virtue of this attribute of his nature, +God eternally wills and maintains his own moral excellence. In this definition +are contained three elements: first, purity; secondly, purity willing; +thirdly, purity willing itself. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 15:11—<q>glorious in holiness</q></emph>; <emph>19:10-16</emph>—the people of Israel must purify themselves +before they come into the presence of God; <emph>Is. 6:3—<q>Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts</q></emph>—notice +the contrast with the unclean lips, that must be purged with a coal from the +altar (<emph>verses 5-7</emph>); <emph>2 Cor, 7:1—<q>cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the +fear of God</q></emph>; <emph>1 Thess. 3:13—<q>unblamable in holiness</q></emph>; <emph>4:7—<q>God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification</q></emph>; +<emph>Heb. 12:29—<q>our God is a consuming fire</q></emph>—to all iniquity. These passages show that +holiness is the opposite to impurity, that it is itself purity. +The development of the conception of holiness in Hebrew history was doubtless a +gradual one. At first it may have included little more than the idea of separation from +all that is common, small and mean. Physical cleanliness and hatred of moral evil +were additional elements which in time became dominant. We must remember however +that the proper meaning of a term is to be determined not by the earliest but by +the latest usage. Human nature is ethical from the start, and seeks to express the +thought of a rule or standard of obligation, and of a righteous Being who imposes +that rule or standard. With the very first conceptions of majesty and separation which +attach to the apprehension of divinity in the childhood of the race there mingles at +least some sense of the contrast between God's purity and human sin. The least +developed man has a conscience which condemns some forms of wrong doing, and +causes a feeling of separation from the power or powers above. Physical defilement +becomes the natural symbol of moral evil. Places and vessels and rites are invested +with dignity as associated with or consecrated to the Deity. +</p> + +<p> +That the conception of holiness clears itself of extraneous and unessential elements +only gradually, and receives its full expression only in the New Testament revelation +and especially in the life and work of Christ, should not blind us to the fact that +the germs of the idea lie far back in the very beginnings of man's existence upon +earth. Even then the sense of wrong within had for its correlate a dimly recognized +righteousness without. So soon as man knows himself as a sinner he knows +something of the holiness of that God whom he has offended. We must take exception +therefore to the remark of Schurman, Belief in God, 231—<q>The first gods were +probably non-moral beings,</q> for Schurman himself had just said: <q>A God without +moral character is no God at all.</q> Dillmann, in his O. T. Theology, very properly +makes the fundamental thought of O. T. religion, not the unity or the majesty of God, +but his holiness. This alone forms the ethical basis for freedom and law. E. G. Robinson, +Christian Theology—<q>The one aim of Christianity is personal holiness. But +personal holiness will be the one absorbing and attainable aim of man, only as he +recognizes it to be the one preëminent attribute of God. Hence everything divine is +holy—the temple, the Scriptures, the Spirit.</q> See articles on Holiness in O. T., by J. +Skinner, and on Holiness in N. T., by G. B. Stevens, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary. +</p> + +<p> +The development of the idea of holiness as well as the idea of love was prepared for +before the advent of man. A. H. Strong, Education and Optimism: <q>There was a +time when the past history of life upon the planet seemed one of heartless and cruel +slaughter. The survival of the fittest had for its obverse side the destruction of +myriads. Nature was <q>red in tooth and claw with ravine.</q> But further thought has +shown that this gloomy view results from a partial induction of facts. Paleontological +life was marked not only by a struggle for life, but by a struggle for the life of others. +The beginnings of altruism are to be seen in the instinct of reproduction, and in the +care of offspring. In every lion's den and tiger's lair, in every mother eagle's feeding of +her young, there is a self-sacrifice which faintly shadows forth man's subordination of +personal interests to the interests of others. But in the ages before man can be found +incipient justice as well as incipient love. The struggle for one's own life has its moral +side as well as the struggle for the life of others. The instinct of self-preservation is +the beginning of right, righteousness, justice, and law, on earth. Every creature owes +<pb n='269'/><anchor id='Pg269'/> +it to God to preserve its own being. So we can find an adumbration of morality even +in the predatory and internecine warfare of the geologic ages. The immanent God +was even then preparing the way for the rights, the dignity, the freedom of humanity.</q> +And, we may add, was preparing the way for the understanding by men of his own +fundamental attribute of holiness. See Henry Drummond, Ascent of Man; Griffith-Jones, +Ascent through Christ. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In further explanation we remark: +</p> + +<p> +A. Negatively, that holiness is not +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Justice, or purity demanding purity from creatures. Justice, the +relative or transitive attribute, is indeed the manifestation and expression +of the immanent attribute of holiness, but it is not to be confounded +with it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Quenstedt, Theol., 8:1:34, defines holiness as <q>summa omnisque labis expers to Deo +puritas, puritatem debitam exigens a creaturis</q>—a definition of transitive holiness, or +justice, rather than of the immanent attribute. <emph>Is. 5:16—<q>Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, +and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness</q></emph>—Justice is simply God's holiness in its judicial +activity. Though holiness is commonly a term of separation and expresses the inherent +opposition of God to all that is sinful, it is also used as a term of union, as in <emph>Lev. +11:44—<q>be ye holy; for I am holy.</q></emph> When Jesus turned from the young ruler (<emph>Mark 10:23</emph>) he +illustrated the first; <emph>John 8:29</emph> illustrates the second: <emph><q>he that sent me is with me.</q></emph> Lowrie, +Doctrine of St. John, 51-57—<q><emph><q>God is light</q> (1 John 1:5)</emph> indicates the character of God, moral +purity as revealed, as producing joy and life, as contrasted with doing ill, walking in +darkness, being in a state of perdition.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Universal human conscience is itself a revelation of the holiness of God, and the +joining everywhere of suffering with sin is the revelation of God's justice. The wrath, +anger, jealousy of God show that this reaction of God's nature is necessary. God's +nature is itself holy, just, and good. Holiness is not replaced by love, as Ritschl holds, +since there is no self-impartation without self-affirmation. Holiness not simply +<emph>demands</emph> in law, but <emph>imparts</emph> in the Holy Spirit; see Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 79—<hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> +Ritschl's doctrine that holiness is God's exaltation, and that it includes love; see also +Pfleiderer, Die Ritschlische Theologie, 53-63. Santayana, Sense of Beauty, 69—<q>If perfection +is the ultimate justification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral +dignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and +nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.</q> We would +regard nature however as merely the symbol and expression of God, and so would regard +beauty as a ground of faith in his supremacy. What Santayana says of beauty is even +more true of holiness. Wherever we see it, we recognize in it a pledge of the possible +conformity between the soul and God, and consequently a ground of faith in the +supremacy of God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Holiness is not a complex term designating the aggregate of the +divine perfections. On the other hand, the notion of holiness is, both in +Scripture and in Christian experience, perfectly simple, and perfectly distinct +from that of other attributes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Dick, Theol., 1:275—Holiness = venerableness, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, <q>no particular attribute, but the +general character of God as resulting from his moral attributes.</q> Wardlaw calls +holiness the union of all the attributes, as pure white light is the union of all the colored +rays of the spectrum (Theology, 1:618-634). So Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doct., +166; H. W. Beecher: <q>Holiness = wholeness.</q> Approaching this conception is the +definition of W. N. Clarke, Christian Theology, 83—<q>Holiness is the glorious fulness +of the goodness of God, consistently held as the principle of his own action, and +the standard for his creatures.</q> This implies, according to Dr. Clarke, 1. An inward +character of perfect goodness; 2. That character as the consistent principle of his +own action; 3. The goodness which is the principle of his own action is also the standard +for theirs. In other words, holiness is 1. character; 2. self-consistency; 3. requirement. +We object to this definition that it fails to define. We are not told what is essential +to this character; the definition includes in holiness that which properly belongs +to love; it omits all mention of the most important elements in holiness, namely purity +and right. +</p> + +<pb n='270'/><anchor id='Pg270'/> + +<p> +A similar lack of clear definition appears in the statement of Mark Hopkins, Law of +Love, 105—<q>It is this double aspect of love, revealing the whole moral nature, and +turning every way like the flaming sword that kept the way of the tree of life, that is +termed holiness.</q> As has been shown above, holiness is contrasted in Scripture, not +with mere finiteness or littleness or misfortune or poverty or even unreality, but only +with uncleanness and sinfulness. E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 80—<q>Holiness in +man is the image of God's. But it is clear that holiness in man is not in proportion to +the other perfections of his being—to his power, his knowledge, his wisdom, though it +is in proportion to his rectitude of will—and therefore cannot be the sum of all perfections.... +To identify holiness with the sum of all perfections is to make it mean +mere completeness of character.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Holiness is not God's self-love, in the sense of supreme regard for +his own interest and happiness. There is no utilitarian element in holiness. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Buddeus, Theol. Dogmat., 2:1:36, defines holiness as God's self-love. But God loves +and affirms self, not as self, but as the holiest. There is no self-seeking in God. Not the +seeking of God's interests, but love for God as holy, is the principle and source of +holiness in man. To call holiness God's self-love is to say that God is holy because of +what he can make by it, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, to deny that holiness has any independent existence. See +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:155. +</p> + +<p> +We would not deny, but would rather maintain, that there is a proper self-love +which is not selfishness. This proper self-love, however, is not love at all. It is rather +self-respect, self-preservation, self-vindication, and it constitutes an important characteristic +of holiness. But to define holiness as merely God's love for himself, is to +leave out of the definition the reason for this love in the purity and righteousness of +the divine nature. God's self-respect implies that God respects himself for something +in his own being. What is that something? Is holiness God's <q>moral excellence</q> +(Hopkins), or God's <q>perfect goodness</q> (Clarke)? But what is this moral excellence +or perfect goodness? We have here the method and the end described, but not the +motive and ground. God does not love himself for his love, but he loves himself for +his holiness. Those who maintain that love is self-affirming as well as self-communicating, +and therefore that holiness is God's love for himself, must still admit that this +self-affirming love which is holiness conditions and furnishes the standard for the self-communicating +love which is benevolence. +</p> + +<p> +G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 364, tells us that <q>God's righteousness is the self-respect +of perfect love.</q> Miller, Evolution of Love, 53—<q>Self-love is that kind of +action which in a perfect being actualizes, in a finite being seeks to actualize, a perfect +or ideal self.</q> In other words, love is self-affirmation. But we object that self-love +is not <emph>love</emph> at all, because there is in it no self-communicating. If holiness is in any +sense a form or manifestation of love—a question which we have yet to consider—it +is certainly not a unitarian and utilitarian self-love, which would be identical with +selfishness, but rather an affection which implies trinitarian otherness and the maintenance +of self as an ideal object. This appears to be the meaning of Jonathan +Edwards, in his Essay on the Trinity (ed. Fisher), 79—<q>All love respects another that +is the beloved. By love the apostle certainly means something beside that which is +commonly called self-love: that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of an +exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love the apostle is speaking +of.</q> Yet we shall see that while Jonathan Edwards denies holiness to be a unitarian +and utilitarian self-love, he regards its very essence to be God's trinitarian love for +himself as a being of perfect moral excellence. +</p> + +<p> +Ritschl's lack of trinitarian conviction makes it impossible for him to furnish any +proper ground for either love or holiness in the nature of God. Ritschl holds that +Christ as a person is an end in himself; he realized his own ideal; he developed his own +personality; he reached his own perfection in his work for man; he is not merely a +means toward the end of man's salvation. But when Ritschl comes to his doctrine of +God, he is strangely inconsistent with all this, for he fails to represent God as having +any end in himself, and deals with him simply as a means toward the kingdom of God +as an end. Garvie, Ritschlian Theology, 256, 278, 279, well points out that personality +means self-possession as well as self-communication, distinction from others as well as +union with others. Ritschl does not see that God's love is primarily directed towards +<pb n='271'/><anchor id='Pg271'/> +his Son, and only secondarily directed toward the Christian community. So he ignores +the immanent Trinity. Before self-communication there must be self-maintenance. +Otherwise God gives up his independence and makes created existence necessary. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Holiness is not identical with, or a manifestation of, love. Since +self-maintenance must precede self-impartation, and since benevolence has +its object, motive, standard and limit in righteousness, holiness the self-affirming +attribute can in no way be resolved into love the self-communicating. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +That holiness is a form of love is the doctrine of Jonathan Edwards, Essay on the +Trinity (ed. Fisher), 97—<q>'Tis in God's infinite love to himself that his holiness consists. +As all creature holiness is to be resolved into love, as the Scripture teaches us, +so doth the holiness of God himself consist in infinite love to himself. God's holiness +is the infinite beauty and excellence of his nature, and God's excellency consists in his +love to himself.</q> In his treatise on The Nature of Virtue, Jonathan Edwards defines +virtue as regard for being in general. He considers that God's love is first of all +directed toward himself as having the greatest quantity of being, and only secondarily +directed towards his creatures whose quantity of being is infinitesimal as compared +with his. God therefore finds his chief end in himself, and God's self-love is his holiness. +This principle has permeated and dominated subsequent New England theology, from +Samuel Hopkins, Works, 2:9-66, who maintains that holiness = love of being in general, +to Horace Bushnell, Vicarious Sacrifice, who declares: <q>Righteousness, transferred +into a word of the affections, is love; and love, translated back into a word of the conscience, +is righteousness; the eternal law of right is only another conception of the law +of love; the two principles, right and love, appear exactly to measure each other.</q> +So Park, Discourses, 155-180. +</p> + +<p> +Similar doctrine is taught by Dorner, Christian Ethics, 73, 93, 184—<q>Love unites +existence for self with existence for others, self-assertion and self-impartation.... +Self-love in God is not selfishness, because he is the original and necessary seat of good +in general, universal good. God guards his honor even in giving himself to others.... +Love is the power and desire to be one's self while in another, and while one's self to be +in another who is taken into the heart as an end.... I am to love my neighbor only +as myself.... Virtue however requires not only good will, but the willing of the right +thing.</q> So Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 226-239, holds that 1. Love is self-affirmation. +Hence he maintains that holiness or self-respect is involved in love. Righteousness +is not an independent excellence to be contrasted with or put in opposition to +benevolence; it is an essential part of love. 2. Love is self-impartation. The only +limit is ethical. Here is an ever deepening immanence, yet always some transcendence +of God, for God cannot deny himself. 3. Love is self-finding in another. Vicariousness +belongs to love. We reply to both Dorner and Smyth that their acknowledgment +that love has its condition, limit, motive, object and standard, shows that there is a +principle higher than love, and which regulates love. This principle is recognized as +ethical. It is identical with the right. God cannot deny himself because he is fundamentally +the right. This self-affirmation is holiness, and holiness cannot be a part of +love, or a form of love, because it conditions and dominates love. To call it benevolence +is to ignore its majestic distinctness and to imperil its legitimate supremacy. +</p> + +<p> +God must first maintain his own being before he can give to another, and this self-maintenance +must have its reason and motive in the worth of that which is maintained. +Holiness cannot be love, because love is irrational and capricious except as it +has a standard by which it is regulated, and this standard cannot be itself love, but +must be holiness. We agree with Clarke, Christian Theology, 92, that <q>love is the +desire to impart holiness.</q> Love is a means to holiness, and holiness is therefore the +supreme good and something higher than mere love. It is not true, <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi>, that +holiness is the desire to impart love, or that holiness is a means to love. Instead then +of saying, with Clarke, that <q>holiness is central in God, but love is central in holiness,</q> +we should prefer to say: <q>Love is central in God, but holiness is central in love,</q> +though in this case we should use the term love as including self-love. It is still better +not to use the word love at all as referring to God's regard for himself. In ordinary +usage, love means only regard for another and self-communication to that other. To +embrace in it God's self-affirmation is to misinterpret holiness and to regard it as a +means to an end, instead of making it what it really is, the superior object, and the +regulative principle, of love. +</p> + +<pb n='272'/><anchor id='Pg272'/> + +<p> +That which lays down the norm or standard for love must be the superior of love. +When we forget that <emph><q>Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne</q> (Ps. 97:2)</emph>, we lose +one of the chief landmarks of Christian doctrine and involve ourselves in a mist of +error. <emph>Rev. 4:3—<q>there was a rainbow round about the throne</q></emph> = in the midst of the rainbow of +pardon and peace there is a throne of holiness and judgment. In <emph>Mat. 6:9, 10, <q>Thy kingdom +come</q></emph> is not the first petition, but rather, <emph><q>Hallowed be thy name.</q></emph> It is a false idea of the divine +simplicity which would reduce the attributes to one. Self-assertion is not a form of +self-impartation. Not sentiency, a state of the sensibility, even though it be the +purest benevolence, is the fundamental thing, but rather activity of will and a +right direction of that will. Hodge, Essays, 133-136, 262-273, shows well that holy +love is a love controlled by holiness. Holiness is not a mere means to happiness. +To be happy is not the ultimate reason for being holy. Right and wrong are not +matters of profit and loss. To be told that God is only benevolence, and that he +punishes only when the happiness of the universe requires it, destroys our whole +allegiance to God and does violence to the constitution of our nature. +</p> + +<p> +That God is only love has been called <q>the doctrine of the papahood of God.</q> +God is <q>a summer ocean of kindliness, never agitated by storms</q> (Dale, Ephesians, +59). But Jesus gives us the best idea of God, and in him we find, not only +pity, but at times moral indignation. <emph>John 17:11—<q>Holy Father</q></emph> = more than love. Love +can be exercised by God only when it is right love. Holiness is the track on which +the engine of love must run. The track cannot be the engine. If either includes +the other, then it is holiness that includes love, since holiness is the maintenance +of God's perfection, and perfection involves love. He that is holy affirms himself +also as the perfect love. If love were fundamental, there would be nothing to give, +and so love would be vain and worthless. There can be no giving of self, without +a previous self-affirming. God is not holy because he loves, but he loves because +he is holy. Love cannot direct itself; it is under bonds to holiness. Justice is not +dependent on love for its right to be. Stephen G. Barnes: <q>Mere good will is not +the sole content of the law; it is insufficient in times of fiery trial; it is inadequate +as a basis for retribution. Love needs justice, and justice needs love; both +are commanded in God's law and are perfectly revealed in God's character.</q> +</p> + +<p> +There may be a friction between a man's two hands, and there may be a conflict +between a man's conscience and his will, between his intellect and his affection. +Force is God's energy under resistance, the resistance as well as the energy being +his. So, upon occasion of man's sin, holiness and love in God become opposite poles +or forces. The first and most serious effect of sin is not its effect upon man, but +its effect upon God. Holiness necessarily requires suffering, and love endures it. +This eternal suffering of God on account of sin is the atonement, and the incarnate +Christ only shows what has been in the heart of God from the beginning. To make +holiness a form of love is really to deny its existence, and with this to deny that any +atonement is necessary for man's salvation. If holiness is the same as love, how +is it that the classic world, that knew of God's holiness, did not also know of his +love? The ethics here reminds one of Abraham Lincoln's meat broth that was made +of the shadow of a pigeon that died of starvation. Holiness that is only good will +is not holiness at all, for it lacks the essential elements of purity and righteousness. +</p> + +<p> +At the railway switching grounds east of Rochester, there is a man whose duty it is +to move a bar of iron two or three inches to the left or to the right. So he determines +whether a train shall go toward New York or toward Washington, toward New Orleans +or San Francisco. Our conclusion at this point in our theology will similarly determine +what our future system will be. The principle that holiness is a manifestation of +love, or a form of benevolence, leads to the conclusions that happiness is the only good, +and the only end; that law is a mere expedient for the securing of happiness; that penalty +is simply deterrent or reformatory in its aim; that no atonement needs to be offered +to God for human sin; that eternal retribution cannot be vindicated, since there is no +hope of reform. This view ignores the testimony of conscience and of Scripture that +sin is intrinsically ill-deserving, and must be punished on that account, not because +punishment will work good to the universe,—indeed, it could not work good to the +universe, unless it were just and right in itself. It ignores the fact that mercy is +optional with God, while holiness is invariable; that punishment is many times +traced to God's holiness, but never to God's love; that God is not simply love but +light—moral light—and therefore is <emph><q>a consuming fire</q> (Heb. 12:29)</emph> to all iniquity. Love +chastens (<emph>Heb. 12:6</emph>), but only holiness punishes (<emph>Jer. 10:24—<q>correct me, but in measure; not in +thine anger</q></emph>; <emph>Ez. 28:22—<q>I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her</q></emph>; <emph>36:21, 22</emph>—in +<pb n='273'/><anchor id='Pg273'/> +judgment <emph><q>I do not this for your sake, but for my holy name</q></emph>; <emph>1 John 1:5—<q>God is light, and in him is +no darkness</q></emph>—moral darkness; <emph>Rev. 15:1, 4—<q>the wrath of God ... thou only art holy ... thy righteous +acts have been made manifest</q></emph>; <emph>16:5—<q>righteous art thou ... because thou didst thus judge</q></emph>; <emph>19:2—<q>true +and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot</q>).</emph> See Hovey, God with Us, 187-221; +Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:80-82; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 154, 155, +346-353; Lange, Pos. Dogmatik, 203. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. Positively, that holiness is +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Purity of substance.—In God's moral nature, as necessarily acting, +there are indeed the two elements of willing and being. But the passive +logically precedes the active; being comes before willing; God <emph>is</emph> pure +before he <emph>wills</emph> purity. Since purity, however, in ordinary usage is a +negative term and means only freedom from stain or wrong, we must +include in it also the positive idea of moral rightness. God is holy in that +he is the source and standard of the right. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 80—<q>Holiness is moral purity, not only in the +sense of absence of all moral stain, but of complacency in all moral good.</q> Shedd, +Dogm. Theology, 1:362—<q>Holiness in God is conformity to his own perfect nature. +The only rule for the divine will is the divine reason; and the divine reason prescribes +everything that is befitting an infinite Being to do. God is not under law, nor above +law. He <emph>is</emph> law. He is righteous by nature and necessity.... God is the source and +author of law for all moral beings.</q> We may better Shedd's definition by saying that +holiness is that attribute in virtue of which God's being and God's will eternally conform +to each other. In thus maintaining that holy being logically precedes holy +willing, we differ from the view of Lotze, Philos. of Religion, 139—<q>Such will of God +no more follows from his nature as secondary to it, or precedes it as primary to it than, +in motion, direction can be antecedent or subsequent to velocity.</q> Bowne, Philos. of +Theism, 16—<q>God's nature = a fixed law of activity or mode of manifestation.... But +laws of thought are no limitation, because they are simply modes of thought-activity. +They do not <emph>rule</emph> intellect, but only express what intellect <emph>is</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +In spite of these utterances of Lotze and of Bowne, we must maintain that, as truth +of being logically precedes truth of knowing, and as a loving nature precedes loving +emotions, so purity of substance precedes purity of will. The opposite doctrine leads +to such utterances as that of Whedon (On the Will, 316): <q>God is holy, in that he freely +chooses to make his own happiness in eternal right. Whether he could not make himself +equally happy in wrong is more than we can say.... Infinite wisdom and infinite +holiness consist in, and result from, God's volitions eternally.</q> Whedon therefore +believes, not in God's <emph>unchangeableness</emph>, but in God's <emph>unchangingness</emph>. He cannot say +whether motives may not at some time prove strongest for divine apostasy to evil. +The essential holiness of God affords no basis for certainty. Here we have to rely on +our faith, more than on the object of faith; see H. B. Smith, Review of Whedon, in +Faith and Philosophy, 355-399. As we said with regard to truth, so here we say with +regard to holiness, that to make holiness a matter of mere will, instead of regarding it +as a characteristic of God's being, is to deny that anything is holy in itself. If God +can make impurity to be purity, then God in himself is indifferent to purity or impurity, +and he ceases therefore to be God. Robert Browning, A Soul's Tragedy, 223—<q>I +trust in God—the Right shall be the Right And other than the Wrong, while He +endures.</q> P. S. Moxom: <q>Revelation is a disclosure of the divine righteousness. We +do not add to the thought when we say that it is also a disclosure of the divine love, +for love is a manifestation or realization of that rightness of relations which righteousness +is.</q> H. B. Smith, System, 223-231—<q>Virtue = love for both happiness and holiness, +yet holiness as ultimate,—love to the highest Person and to his ends and objects.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Energy of will.—This purity is not simply a passive and dead quality; +it is the attribute of a personal being; it is penetrated and pervaded +by will. Holiness is the free moral movement of the Godhead. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +As there is a higher Mind than our mind, and a greater Heart than our heart, so there +is a grander Will than our will. Holiness contains this element of will, although it is a +will which expresses nature, instead of causing nature. It is not a still and moveless +purity, like the whiteness of the new-fallen snow, or the stainless blue of the summer +<pb n='274'/><anchor id='Pg274'/> +sky. It is the most tremendous of energies, in unsleeping movement. It is <emph><q>a glassy sea</q> +(Rev. 15:2)</emph>, but <emph><q>a glassy sea mingled with fire.</q></emph> A. J. Gordon: <q>Holiness is not a dead-white +purity, the perfection of the faultless marble statue. Life, as well as purity, enters +into the idea of holiness. They who are <q>without fault before the throne</q> are they +who <q>follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth</q>—holy activity attending and expressing +their holy state.</q> Martensen, Christian Ethics, 62, 63—<q>God is the perfect unity +of the ethically necessary and the ethically free</q>; <q>God cannot do otherwise than will +his own essential nature.</q> See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 141; and on the +Holiness of Christ, see Godet, Defence of the Christian Faith, 203-241. +</p> + +<p> +The centre of personality is will. Knowing has its end in feeling, and feeling has its +end in willing. Hence I must make feeling subordinate to willing, and happiness to +righteousness. I must will with God and for God, and must use all my influence over +others to make them like God in holiness. William James, Will to Believe, 123—<q>Mind +must first get its impression from the object; then define what that object is and what +active measures its presence demands; and finally react.... All faiths and philosophies, +moods and systems, subserve and pass into a third stage, the stage of action.</q> +What is true of man is even more true of God. All the wills of men combined, aye, +even the whole moving energy of humanity in all climes and ages, is as nothing compared +with the extent and intensity of God's willing. The whole momentum of God's +being is behind moral law. That law is his self-expression. His beneficent yet also +his terrible arm is ever defending and enforcing it. God must maintain his holiness, +for this is his very Godhead. If he did not maintain it, love would have nothing to +give away, or to make others partakers of. +</p> + +<p> +Does God will the good because it is the good, or is the good good because God wills +it? In the former case, there would seem to be a good above God; in the latter case, +good is something arbitrary and changeable. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 186, 187, says that +neither of these is true; he holds that there is no <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> good before the willing of it, +and he also holds that will without direction is not will; the good is good for God, not +<emph>before</emph>, but <emph>in</emph>, his self-determination. Dorner, System Doctrine, 1:432, holds on the +contrary that both these are true, because God has no mere simple form of being, +whether necessary or free, but rather a manifoldly diverse being, absolutely correlated +however, and reciprocally conditioning itself,—that is, a trinitarian being, both necessary +and free. We side with Dorner here, and claim that the belief that God's will is +the executive of God's being is necessary to a correct ethics and to a correct theology. +Celsus justified polytheism by holding that whatever is a part of God reveals God, +serves God, and therefore may rationally be worshiped. Christianity he excepted +from this wide toleration, because it worshiped a jealous God who was not content +to be one of many. But this jealousy really signifies that God is a Being to whom +moral distinctions are real. The God of Celsus, the God of pantheism, is not jealous, +because he is not the Holy One, but simply the Absolute. The category of the ethical is +merged in the category of being; see Bruce, Apologetics, 16. The great lack of modern +theology is precisely this ethical lack; holiness is merged in benevolence; there is no +proper recognition of God's righteousness. <emph>John 17:25—<q>O righteous Father, the world knew thee +not</q></emph>—is a text as true to-day as in Jesus' time. See Issel, Begriff der Heiligkeit in N. T., +41, 84, who defines holiness in God as <q>the ethical perfection of God in its exaltation +above all that is sinful,</q> and holiness in men as <q>the condition corresponding to that +of God, in which man keeps himself pure from sin.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Self-affirmation.—Holiness is God's self-willing. His own purity is +the supreme object of his regard and maintenance. God is holy, in that +his infinite moral excellence affirms and asserts itself as the highest possible +motive and end. Like truth and love, this attribute can be understood +only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Holiness is purity willing itself. We have an analogy in man's duty of self-preservation, +self-respect, self-assertion. Virtue is bound to maintain and defend itself, as in +the case of Job. In his best moments, the Christian feels that purity is not simply the +negation of sin, but the affirmation of an inward and divine principle of righteousness. +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137—<q>Holiness is the perfect agreement of +the divine willing with the divine being; for as the personal creature is holy when it +wills and determines itself as God wills, so is God the holy one because he wills himself +as what he is (or, to be what he is). In virtue of this attribute, God excludes from +himself everything that contradicts his nature, and affirms himself in his absolutely +<pb n='275'/><anchor id='Pg275'/> +good being—his being like himself.</q> Tholuck on Romans, 5th ed., 151—<q>The term +holiness should be used to indicate a relation of God to himself. That is holy which, +undisturbed from without, is wholly like itself.</q> Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:456—<q>It +is the part of goodness to protect goodness.</q> We shall see, when we consider the +doctrine of the Trinity, that that doctrine has close relations to the doctrine of the +immanent attributes. It is in the Son that God has a perfect object of will, as well as +of knowledge and love. +</p> + +<p> +The object of God's willing in eternity past can be nothing outside of himself. It +must be the highest of all things. We see what it must be, only when we remember +that the right is the unconditional imperative of our moral nature. Since we are made +in his image we must conclude that God eternally wills righteousness. Not all God's +acts are acts of love, but all are acts of holiness. The self-respect, self-preservation, +self-affirmation, self-assertion, self-vindication, which we call God's holiness, is only +faintly reflected in such utterances as <emph>Job 27:5, 6—<q>Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from +me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go</q></emph>; <emph>31:37—<q>I would declare unto him the number of my steps; +as a prince would I go near unto him.</q></emph> The fact that the Spirit of God is denominated the Holy +Spirit should teach us what is God's essential nature, and the requisition that we +should be holy as he is holy should teach us what is the true standard of human duty +and object of human ambition. God's holiness moreover, since it is self-affirmation, +furnishes the guarantee that God's love will not fail to secure its end, and that all +things will serve his purpose. <emph>Rom. 11:36—<q>For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. +To him be the glory for ever. Amen.</q></emph> On the whole subject of Holiness, as an attribute of God, +see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 188-200, and Christ in Creation, 388-405; Delitzsch, +art. Heiligkeit, in Herzog, Realencyclop.; Baudissin, Begriff der Heiligkeit im +A. T.,—synopsis in Studien und Kritiken, 1880:169; Robertson Smith, Prophets of +Israel, 224-234; E. B. Coe, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:42-47; and articles on Holiness +in O. T., and Holiness in N. T., in Hastings' Bible Dictionary. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>VI. Relative or Transitive Attributes.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>First Division.—Attributes having relation to Time and Space.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Eternity.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean that God's nature (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) is without beginning or end; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) +is free from all succession of time; and (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) contains in itself the cause of +time. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Deut. 32:40—<q>For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever....</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 90:2—<q>Before the mountains ... +from everlasting ... thou art God</q></emph>; <emph>102:27—<q>thy years shall have no end</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 41:4—<q>I Jehovah, +the first, and with the last</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 2:7</emph>—πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων—<emph><q>before the worlds</q></emph> or <emph><q>ages</q></emph> = πρὸ καταβολῆς +κόσμου—<emph><q>before the foundation of the world</q> (Eph. 1:4)</emph>. <emph>1 Tim. 1:17</emph>—Βασιλεῖ τῶν αἰώνων—<emph><q>King of the +ages</q></emph> (so also <emph>Rev. 15:8</emph>). <emph>1 Tim. 6:16—<q>who only hath immortality.</q></emph> <emph>Rev. 1:8—<q>the Alpha and the +Omega.</q></emph> Dorner: <q>We must not make Kronos (time) and Uranos (space) earlier divinities +before God.</q> They are among the <emph><q>all things</q></emph> that were <emph><q>made by him </q> (John 1:3)</emph>. Yet +time and space are not <emph>substances</emph>; neither are they <emph>attributes</emph> (qualities of substance); +they are rather <emph>relations</emph> of finite existence. (Porter, Human Intellect, 568, prefers to +call time and space <q><emph>correlates</emph> to beings and events.</q>) With finite existence they +come into being; they are not mere regulative conceptions of our minds; they exist +objectively, whether we perceive them or not. Ladd: <q>Time is the mental presupposition +of the duration of events and of objects. Time is not an entity, or it would be +necessary to suppose some other time in which it endures. We think of space and +time as unconditional, because they furnish the conditions of our knowledge. The age +of a son is conditioned on the age of his father. The conditions themselves cannot be +conditioned. Space and time are mental forms, but not only that. There is an extra-mental +something in the case of space and time, as in the case of sound.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Ex. 3:14—<q>I am</q></emph>—involves eternity. <emph>Ps. 102:12-14—<q>But thou, O Jehovah, wilt abide forever.... +Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; for it is time to have pity upon her.... For thy servants ... have +pity upon her dust</q></emph> = because God is eternal, he will have compassion upon Zion: he will +do this, for even we, her children, love her very dust. <emph>Jude 25—<q>glory, majesty, dominion and +power, before all time, and now, and for evermore.</q></emph> Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:165—<q>God is <emph><q>King +of the æons</q> (1 Tim. 1:17)</emph>, because he distinguishes, in his thinking, his eternal inner essence +from his changeable working in the world. He is not merged in the process.</q> Edwards +<pb n='276'/><anchor id='Pg276'/> +the younger describes timelessness as <q>the immediate and invariable possession of +the whole unlimited life together and at once.</q> Tyler, Greek Poets, 148—<q>The +heathen gods had only existence without end. The Greeks seem never to have conceived +of existence without beginning.</q> On precognition as connected with the so-called +future already existing, and on apparent time progression as a subjective human +sensation and not inherent in the universe as it exists in an infinite Mind, see Myers, +Human Personality, 2:262 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi> Tennyson, Life, 1:322—<q>For was and is and will be are +but is: And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light; but we that are not all, +As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live perforce from thought to +thought, and make The act a phantom of succession: there Our weakness somehow +shapes the shadow, Time.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Augustine: <q>Mundus non in tempore, sed cum tempore, factus est.</q> There is no +meaning to the question: Why did creation take place when it did rather than earlier? +or the question: What was God doing before creation? These questions presuppose +an independent time in which God created—a time before time. On the other hand, +creation did not take place at any time, but God gave both the world and time their +existence. Royce, World and Individual, 2:111-115—<q>Time is the form of the will, +as space is the form of the intellect (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 124, 133). Time runs only in one direction +(unlike space), toward fulfilment of striving or expectation. In pursuing its goals, +the self lives in time. Every <emph>now</emph> is also a succession, as is illustrated in any +melody. To God the universe is <q>totum simul</q>, as to us any succession is one whole. +233—Death is a change in the time-span—the minimum of time in which a succession +can appear as a completed whole. To God <emph><q>a thousand years</q></emph> are <emph><q>as one day</q> (2 Pet. 3:8)</emph>. +419—God, In his totality as the Absolute Being, is conscious not, <emph>in</emph> time, but <emph>of</emph> time, +and of all that infinite time contains. In time there follow, in their sequence, the +chords of his endless symphony. For him is this whole symphony of life at once.... +You unite present, past and future in a single consciousness whenever you hear any +three successive words, for one is past, another is present, at the same time that a +third is future. So God unites in timeless perception the whole succession of finite +events.... The single notes are not lost in the melody. You are in God, but you are +not lost in God.</q> Mozart, quoted in Wm. James, Principles of Psychology, 1:255—<q>All +the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream. But the best +of all is <hi rend='italic'>the hearing of it all at once</hi>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Eternity is infinity in its relation to time. It implies that God's nature +is not subject to the law of time. God is not in time. It is more correct +to say that time is in God. Although there is logical succession in God's +thoughts, there is no chronological succession. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Time is duration measured by successions. Duration without succession would still +be duration, though it would be immeasurable. Reid, Intellectual Powers, essay 3, +chap. 5—<q>We may measure duration by the succession of thoughts in the mind, as we +measure length by inches or feet, but the notion or idea of duration must be antecedent +to the mensuration of it, as the notion of length is antecedent to its being measured.</q> +God is not under the law of time. Solly, The Will, 254—<q>God looks through +time as we look through space.</q> Murphy, Scientific Bases, 90—<q>Eternity is not, as +men believe, Before and after us, an endless line. No, 'tis a circle. Infinitely great—All +the circumference with creations thronged: God at the centre dwells, beholding all. +And as we move in this eternal round, The finite portion which alone we see Behind us, +is the past; what lies before We call the future. But to him who dwells Far at the +centre, equally remote From every point of the circumference, Both are alike, the +future and the past.</q> Vaughan (1655): <q>I saw Eternity the other night. Like a great +ring of pure and endless light. And calm as it was bright; and round beneath it Time +in hours, days, years, Driven by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the +world And all her train were hurled.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We cannot have derived from experience our idea of eternal duration in the past, +for experience gives us only duration that has had beginning. The idea of duration as +without beginning must therefore be given us by intuition. Case, Physical Realism, +379, 380—<q>Time is the continuance, or continual duration, of the universe.</q> Bradley, +Appearance and Reality, 39—Consider time as a stream—under a spatial form: <q>If +you take time as a relation between units without duration, then the whole time has +no duration, and is not time at all. But if you give duration to the whole time, then at +once the units themselves are found to possess it, and they cease to be units.</q> The +<pb n='277'/><anchor id='Pg277'/> +<emph>now</emph> is not time, unless it turns past into future, and this is a process. The now then +consists of nows, and these nows are undiscoverable. The unit is nothing but its own +relation to something beyond, something not discoverable. Time therefore is not real, +but is appearance. +</p> + +<p> +John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 1:185—<q>That which grasps and correlates objects in space +cannot itself be one of the things of space; that which apprehends and connects events +as succeeding each other in time must itself stand above the succession or stream of +events. In being able to measure them, it cannot be flowing with them. There could +not be for self-consciousness any such thing as time, if it were not, in one aspect of it, +above time, if it did not belong to an order which is or has in it an element which is +eternal.... As taken up into thought, succession is not successive.</q> A. H. Strong, +Historical Discourse, May 9, 1900—<q>God is above space and time, and we are in God. +We mark the passage of time, and we write our histories. But we can do this, only +because in our highest being we do not belong to space and time, but have in us a bit +of eternity. John Caird tells us that we could not perceive the flowing of the stream +if we were ourselves a part of the current; only as we have our feet planted on solid +rock, can we observe that the water rushes by. We belong to God; we are akin to +God; and while the world passes away and the lust thereof, he that doeth the will of +God abideth forever.</q> J. Estlin Carpenter and P. H. Wicksteed, Studies in Theology, +10—<q>Dante speaks of God as him in whom <q>every <emph>where</emph> and every <emph>when</emph> are focused +in a point</q>, that is, to whom every season is <emph>now</emph> and every place is <emph>here</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Amiel's Journal: <q>Time is the supreme illusion. It is the inner prism by which we +decompose being and life, the mode by which we perceive successively what is simultaneous +in idea.... Time is the successive dispersion of being, just as speech is the +successive analysis of an intuition, or of an act of the will. In itself it is relative and +negative, and it disappears within the absolute Being.... Time and space are fragments +of the Infinite for the use of finite creatures. God permits them that he may +not be alone. They are the mode under which creatures are possible and conceivable.... +If the universe subsists, it is because the eternal Mind loves to perceive its own +content, in all its wealth and expression, especially in its stages of preparation.... +The radiations of our mind are imperfect reflections from the great show of fireworks +set in motion by Brahma, and great art is great only because of its conformities with +the divine order—with that which is.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Yet we are far from saying that time, now that it exists, has no objective +reality to God. To him, past, present, and future are <q>one eternal now,</q> +not in the sense that there is no distinction between them, but only in the +sense that he sees past and future as vividly as he sees the present. With +creation time began, and since the successions of history are veritable successions, +he who sees according to truth must recognize them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Thomas Carlyle calls God <q>the Eternal Now.</q> Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 30—<q>God +is not contemptuous of time.... One day is with the Lord as a thousand years. +He values the infinitesimal in time, even as he does in space. Hence the patience, +the long-suffering, the expectation, of God.</q> We are reminded of the inscription +on the sun-dial, in which it is said of the hours: <q>Pereunt et imputantur</q>—<q>They +pass by, and they are charged to our account.</q> A certain preacher remarked on the +wisdom of God which has so arranged that the moments of time come successively and +not simultaneously, and thus prevent infinite confusion! Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:344, +illustrates God's eternity by the two ways in which a person may see a procession: first +from a doorway in the street through which the procession is passing; and secondly, +from the top of a steeple which commands a view of the whole procession at the +same instant. +</p> + +<p> +S. E. Meze, quoted in Royce, Conception of God, 40—<q>As if all of us were cylinders, +with their ends removed, moving through the waters of some placid lake. To the cylinders +the waters seem to move. What has passed is a memory, what is to come +is doubtful. But the lake knows that all the water is equally real, and that it is quiet, +immovable, unruffled. Speaking technically, time is no reality. Things <emph>seem</emph> past and +future, and, in a sense, non-existent to us, but, in fact, they are just as genuinely real +as the present is.</q> Yet even here there is an order. You cannot play a symphony +backward and have music. This qualification at least must be put upon the words +of Berkeley; <q>A succession of ideas I take to <emph>constitute</emph> time, and not to be only +the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='278'/><anchor id='Pg278'/> + +<p> +Finney, quoted in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1877:722—<q>Eternity to us means all past, present +and future duration. But to God it means only now. Duration and space, as they +respect his existence, mean infinitely different things from what they do when they +respect our existence. God's existence and his acts, as they respect finite existence, +have relation to time and space. But as they respect his own existence, everything is +<emph>here</emph> and <emph>now</emph>. With respect to all finite existences, God can say: I was, I am, I shall be, +I will do; but with respect to his own existence, all that he can say is: I am, I do.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Edwards the younger, Works, 1:386, 387—<q>There is no succession in the divine mind; +therefore no new operations take place. All the divine acts are from eternity, nor is +there any time with God. The <emph>effects</emph> of these divine acts do indeed all take place in +time and in a succession. If it should be said that on this supposition the effects take +place not till long after the acts by which they are produced, I answer that they do so +in our view, but not in the view of God. With him there is no time; no before or after +with respect to time: nor has time any existence in the divine mind, or in the nature of +things independently of the minds and perceptions of creatures; but it depends on the +succession of those perceptions.</q> We must qualify this statement of the younger +Edwards by the following from Julius Müller: <q>If God's working can have no relation +to time, then all bonds of union between God and the world are snapped asunder.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is an interesting question whether the human spirit is capable of timeless existence, +and whether the conception of time is purely physical. In dreams we seem to lose +sight of succession; in extreme pain an age is compressed into a minute. Does this +throw light upon the nature of prophecy? Is the soul of the prophet rapt into God's +timeless existence and vision? It is doubtful whether <emph>Rev. 10:6—<q>there shall be time no +longer</q></emph> can be relied upon to prove the affirmative; for the Rev. Vers. marg. and the +American Revisers translate <emph><q>there shall be delay no longer.</q></emph> Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:147—<q>All +self-consciousness is a victory over time.</q> So with memory; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, +1:471. On <q>the death-vision of one's whole existence,</q> see Frances Kemble +Butler's experience in Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:351—<q>Here there is succession and series, +only so exceedingly rapid as to seem simultaneous.</q> This rapidity however is so great +as to show that each man can at the last be judged in an instant. On space and time as +unlimited, see Porter, Hum. Intellect, 564-566. On the conception of eternity, see Mansel, +Lectures, Essays and Reviews, 111-126, and Modern Spiritualism, 255-292; New +Englander, April, 1875: art. on the Metaphysical Idea of Eternity. For practical lessons +from the Eternity of God, see Park, Discourses, 137-154; Westcott, Some Lessons +of the Rev. Vers., (Pott, N. Y., 1897), 187—with comments on αἰῶνες in <emph>Eph. 3:21</emph>, <emph>Heb. 11:3</emph>, +<emph>Rev. 4</emph>; <emph>10, 11</emph>—<q>the universe under the aspect of time.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Immensity.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean that God's nature (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) is without extension; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) is subject +to no limitations of space; and (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) contains in itself the cause of space. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>1 Kings 8:27—<q>behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.</q></emph> Space is a creation of +God; <emph>Rom. 8:39—<q>nor height nor depth, nor any other creature.</q></emph> Zahn, Bib. Dogmatik, 149—<q>Scripture +does not teach the immanence of God in the world, but the immanence of the world +in God.</q> Dante does not put God, but Satan at the centre; and Satan, being at the +centre, is crushed with the whole weight of the universe. God is the Being who +encompasses all. All things exist in him. E. G. Robinson: <q>Space is a relation; God is +the author of relations and of our modes of thought; therefore God is the author of +space. Space conditions our thought, but it does not condition God's thought.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Jonathan Edwards: <q>Place itself is mental, and within and without are mental conceptions.... +When I say the material universe exists only in the mind, I mean that it +is absolutely dependent on the conception of the mind for its existence, and does not +exist as spirits do, whose existence does not consist in, nor in dependence on, the conception +of other minds.</q> H. M. Stanley, on Space and Science, in Philosophical +Rev., Nov. 1898:615—<q>Space is not full of things, but things are spaceful.... Space +is a form of dynamic appearance.</q> Bradley carries the ideality of space to an extreme, +when, in his Appearance and Reality, 35-38, he tells us: Space is not a mere relation, +for it has parts, and what can be the parts of a relation? But space is nothing but +a relation, for it is lengths of lengths of—nothing that we can find. We can find no +terms either inside or outside. Space, to be space, must have space outside itself. +Bradley therefore concludes that space is not reality but only appearance. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='279'/><anchor id='Pg279'/> + +<p> +Immensity is infinity in its relation to space. God's nature is not subject +to the law of space. God is not in space. It is more correct to say that +space is in God. Yet space has an objective reality to God. With creation +space began to be, and since God sees according to truth, he recognizes +relations of space in his creation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Many of the remarks made in explanation of time apply equally to space. Space is +not a substance nor an attribute, but a relation. It exists so soon as extended matter +exists, and exists as its necessary condition, whether our minds perceive it or not. Reid, +Intellectual Powers, essay 2, chap. 9—<q>Space is not so properly an object of sense, as +a necessary concomitant of the objects of sight and touch.</q> When we see or touch +body, we get the idea of space in which the body exists, but the idea of space is not furnished +by the sense; it is an <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign> cognition of the reason. Experience furnishes +the occasion of its evolution, but the mind evolves the conception by its own native +energy. +</p> + +<p> +Anselm, Proslogion, 19—<q>Nothing contains thee, but thou containest all things.</q> +Yet it is not precisely accurate to say that space is in God, for this expression seems to +intimate that God is a greater space which somehow includes the less. God is rather +unspatial and is the Lord of space. The notion that space and the divine immensity +are identical leads to a materialistic conception of God. Space is not an attribute of +God, as Clarke maintained, and no argument for the divine existence can be constructed +from this premise (see pages 85, 86). Martineau, Types, 1:138, 139, 170—<q>Malebranche +said that God is the place of all spirits, as space is the place of all bodies.... Descartes +held that there is no such thing as empty space. <emph>Nothing</emph> cannot possibly have +extension. Wherever extension is, there must be <emph>something</emph> extended. Hence the doctrine +of a <foreign rend='italic'>plenum</foreign>, A <emph>vacuum</emph> is inconceivable.</q> Lotze, Outlines of Metaphysics, 87—<q>According +to the ordinary view ... space <emph>exists</emph>, and things exist <emph>in it</emph>; according +to our view, only things exist, and <emph>between them</emph> nothing exists, but space exists <emph>in them</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Case, Physical Realism, 379, 380—<q>Space is the continuity, or continuous extension, +of the universe as one substance.</q> Ladd: <q>Is space extended? Then it must be +extended in some other space. That other space is the space we are talking about. +Space then is not an entity, but a mental presupposition of the existence of extended +substance. Space and time are neither finite nor infinite. Space has neither circumference +nor centre,—its centre would be everywhere. We cannot <emph>imagine</emph> space at all. +It is simply a precondition of mind enabling us to perceive things.</q> In Bib. Sac., 1890:415-444, +art.: Is Space a Reality? Prof. Mead opposes the doctrine that space is purely +subjective, as taught by Bowne; also the doctrine that space is a certain order of relations +among realities; that space is nothing apart from things; but that things, when +they exist, exist in certain relations, and that the sum, or system, of these relations +constitutes space. +</p> + +<p> +We prefer the view of Bowne, Metaphysics, 127, 137, 143, that <q>Space is the form of +objective experience, and is nothing in abstraction from that experience.... It is a +form of intuition, and not a mode of existence. According to this view, things are +not in space and space-relations, but appear to be. In themselves they are essentially +non-spatial; but by their interactions with one another, and with the mind, they give +rise to the appearance of a world of extended things in a common space. Space-predicates, +then, belong to phenomena only, and not to things-in-themselves.... Apparent +reality exists spatially; but proper ontological reality exists spacelessly and without +spatial predicates.</q> For the view that space is relative, see also Cocker, Theistic Conception +of the World, 66-96; Calderwood, Philos. of the Infinite, 331-335. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see +Porter, Human Intellect, 662; Hazard, Letters on Causation in Willing, appendix; Bib. +Sac., Oct. 1877:723; Gear, in Bap. Rev., July, 1880:434; Lowndes, Philos. of Primary +Beliefs, 144-161. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Second Division.—Attributes having relation to Creation.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Omnipresence.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean that God, in the totality of his essence, without diffusion +or expansion, multiplication or division, penetrates and fills the +universe in all its parts. +</p> + +<pb n='280'/><anchor id='Pg280'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 139:7 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>—<q>Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?</q></emph> <emph>Jer. 23:23, +24—<q>Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off?... Do not I fill heaven and earth?</q></emph> <emph>Acts +17:27, 28—<q>he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.</q></emph> Faber: +<q>For God is never so far off As even to be near. He is within. Our spirit is The +home he holds most dear. To think of him as by our side Is almost as untrue As to +remove his shrine beyond Those skies of starry blue. So all the while I thought myself +Homeless, forlorn and weary, Missing my joy, I walked the earth Myself God's sanctuary.</q> +Henri Amiel: <q>From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven +and the infinite.</q> Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism: <q>Speak to him then, for he +hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than +hands and feet.</q> <q>As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The atheist wrote: <q>God is nowhere,</q> but his little daughter read it: <q>God is +now here,</q> and it converted him. The child however sometimes asks: <q>If God is +everywhere, how is there any room for us?</q> and the only answer is that God is not a +material but a spiritual being, whose presence does not exclude finite existence but +rather makes such existence possible. This universal presence of God had to be +learned gradually. It required great faith in Abraham to go out from Ur of the Chaldees, +and yet to hold that God would be with him in a distant land (<emph>Heb. 11:8</emph>). Jacob +learned that the heavenly ladder followed him wherever he went (<emph>Gen. 28:15</emph>). Jesus +taught that <emph><q>neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father</q> (John 4:21)</emph>. Our +Lord's mysterious comings and goings after his resurrection were intended to teach his +disciples that he was with them <emph><q>always, even unto the end of the world</q> (Mat. 28:20)</emph>. The omnipresence +of Jesus demonstrates, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a fortiori</foreign>, the omnipresence of God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In explanation of this attribute we may say: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) God's omnipresence is not potential but essential.—We reject the +Socinian representation that God's essence is in heaven, only his power on +earth. When God is said to <q>dwell in the heavens,</q> we are to understand +the language either as a symbolic expression of exaltation above earthly +things, or as a declaration that his most special and glorious self-manifestations +are to the spirits of heaven. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 123:1—<q>O thou that sittest in the heavens</q></emph>; <emph>113:5—<q>That hath his seat on high</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 57:15—<q>the high +and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.</q></emph> Mere potential omnipresence is Deistic as well as Socinian. +Like birds in the air or fish in the sea, <q>at home, abroad, We are surrounded +still with God.</q> We do not need to go up to heaven to call him down, or into the abyss +to call him up (<emph>Rom. 10:6, 7</emph>). The best illustration is found in the presence of the soul +in every part of the body. Mind seems not confined to the brain. Natural realism in +philosophy, as distinguished from idealism, requires that the mind should be at the +point of contact with the outer world, instead of having reports and ideas brought to +it in the brain; see Porter, Human Intellect, 149. All believers in a soul regard the +soul as at least present in all parts of the brain, and this is a relative omnipresence no +less difficult in principle than its presence in all parts of the body. An animal's brain +may be frozen into a piece solid as ice, yet, after thawing, it will act as before: +although freezing of the whole body will cause death. If the immaterial principle +were confined to the brain we should expect freezing of the brain to cause death. +But if the soul may be omnipresent in the body or even in the brain, the divine Spirit +may be omnipresent in the universe. Bowne, Metaphysics, 136—<q>If finite things are +modes of the infinite, each thing must be a mode of the entire infinite; and the infinite +must be present in its unity and completeness in every finite thing, just as the entire +soul is present in all its acts.</q> This idealistic conception of the entire mind as present +in all its thoughts must be regarded as the best analogue to God's omnipresence in the +universe. We object to the view that this omnipresence is merely potential, as we +find it in Clarke, Christian Theology, 74—<q>We know, and only know, that God is able +to put forth all his power of action, without regard to place.... Omnipresence is an +element in the immanence of God.... A local God would be no real God. If he is not +everywhere, he is not true God anywhere. Omnipresence is implied in all providence, +in all prayer, in all communion with God and reliance on God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So long as it is conceded that consciousness is not confined to a single point in the +brain, the question whether other portions of the brain or of the body are also the seat +of consciousness may be regarded as a purely academic one, and the answer need not +<pb n='281'/><anchor id='Pg281'/> +affect our present argument. The principle of omnipresence is granted when once we +hold that the soul is conscious at more than one point of the physical organism. Yet +the question suggested above is an interesting one and with regard to it psychologists +are divided. Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892), 138-159, holds that consciousness +is correlated with the sum-total of bodily processes, and with him agree +Fechner and Wundt. <q>Pflüger and Lewes say that as the hemispheres of the brain +owe their intelligence to the consciousness which we know to be there, so the intelligence +of the spinal cord's acts must really be due to the invisible presence of a consciousness +lower in degree.</q> Professor Brewer's rattlesnake, after several hours of +decapitation, still struck at him with its bloody neck, when he attempted to seize it by +the tail. From the reaction of the frog's leg after decapitation may we not infer a +certain consciousness? <q>Robin, on tickling the breast of a criminal an hour after +decapitation, saw the arm and hand move toward the spot.</q> Hudson, Demonstration +of a Future Life, 239-249, quotes from Hammond, Treatise on Insanity, chapter 2, to +prove that the brain is not the sole organ of the mind. Instinct does not reside exclusively +in the brain; it is seated in the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>medulla oblongata</foreign>, or in the spinal cord, or in +both these organs. Objective mind, as Hudson thinks, is the function of the physical +brain, and it ceases when the brain loses its vitality. Instinctive acts are performed by +animals after excision of the brain, and by human beings born without brain. Johnson, +in Andover Rev., April, 1890:421—<q>The brain is not the only seat of consciousness. +The same evidence that points to the brain as the <emph>principal</emph> seat of consciousness +points to the nerve-centres situated in the spinal cord or elsewhere as the seat of a +more or less <emph>subordinate</emph> consciousness or intelligence.</q> Ireland, Blot on the Brain, +26—<q>I do not take it for proved that consciousness is entirely confined to the brain.</q> +</p> + +<p> +In spite of these opinions, however, we must grant that the general consensus among +psychologists is upon the other side. Dewey, Psychology, 349—<q>The sensory and +motor nerves have points of meeting in the spinal cord. When a stimulus is transferred +from a sensory nerve to a motor without the conscious intervention of the +mind, we have reflex action.... If something approaches the eye, the stimulus is +transferred to the spinal cord, and instead of being continued to the brain and giving +rise to a sensation, it is discharged into a motor nerve and the eye is immediately +closed.... The reflex action in itself involves no consciousness.</q> William James, +Psychology, 1:16, 66, 134, 214—<q>The cortex of the brain is the sole organ of consciousness +in man.... If there be any consciousness pertaining to the lower centres, it is a +consciousness of which the self knows nothing.... In lower animals this may not be +so much the case.... The seat of the mind, so far as its dynamical relations are +concerned, is somewhere in the cortex of the brain.</q> See also C. A. Strong, Why the +Mind has a Body, 40-50. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) God's omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of +God in every place.—This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal +We reject the materialistic representation that God is composed of +material elements which can be divided or sundered. There is no multiplication +or diffusion of his substance to correspond with the parts of his +dominions. The one essence of God is present at the same moment in all. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>1 Kings 8:27—<q rend='pre'>the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain</q></emph> (circumscribe) <emph><q rend='post'>thee.</q></emph> God must +be present in all his essence and all his attributes in every place. He is <q>totus in omni +parte.</q> Alger, Poetry of the Orient: <q>Though God extends beyond Creation's rim, +Each smallest atom holds the whole of him.</q> From this it follows that the whole +Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time +he fills and governs the whole universe; and so the whole Christ can be united to, and +can be present in, the single believer, as fully as if that believer were the only one to +receive of his fulness. +</p> + +<p> +A. J. Gordon: <q>In mathematics the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. But +we know of the Spirit that every part is equal to the whole. Every church, every +true body of Jesus Christ, has just as much of Christ as every other, and each has the +whole Christ.</q> <emph>Mat. 13:20—<q>where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst +of them.</q></emph> <q>The parish priest of austerity Climbed up in a high church steeple, To be +nearer God so that he might Hand his word down to the people. And in sermon +script he daily wrote What he thought was sent from heaven, And he dropt it down on +the people's heads Two times one day in seven. In his age God said, <q>Come down and +die,</q> And he cried out from the steeple, <q>Where art thou, Lord?</q> And the Lord +replied, <q>Down here among my people.</q></q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='282'/><anchor id='Pg282'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) God's omnipresence is not necessary but free.—We reject the pantheistic +notion that God is bound to the universe as the universe is bound +to God. God is immanent in the universe, not by compulsion, but by +the free act of his own will, and this immanence is qualified by his transcendence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God might at will cease to be omnipresent, for he could destroy the universe; but +while the universe exists, he is and must be in all its parts. God is the life and law of +the universe,—this is the truth in pantheism. But he is also personal and free,—this +pantheism denies. Christianity holds to a free, as well as to an essential, omnipresence—qualified +and supplemented, however, by God's transcendence. The boasted truth in +pantheism is an elementary principle of Christianity, and is only the stepping-stone to a +nobler truth—God's personal presence with his church. The Talmud contrasts the +worship of an idol and the worship of Jehovah: <q>The idol seems so near, but is so far, +Jehovah seems so far, but is so near!</q> God's omnipresence assures us that he is present +with us to hear, and present in every heart and in the ends of the earth to answer, +prayer. See Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 10; Bowne, Metaphysics, 136; +Charnock, Attributes, 1:363-405. +</p> + +<p> +The Puritan turned from the moss-rose bud, saying: <q>I have learned to call nothing +on earth lovely.</q> But this is to despise not only the workmanship but the presence +of the Almighty. The least thing in nature is worthy of study because it is the revelation +of a present God. The uniformity of nature and the reign of law are nothing but +the steady will of the omnipresent God. Gravitation is God's omnipresence in space, +as evolution is God's omnipresence in time. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:73-<q>God +being omnipresent, contact with him may be sought at any moment in prayer and +contemplation; indeed, it will always be true that we live and move and have our +being in him, as the perennial and omnipresent source of our existence.</q> <emph>Rom. 10:6-8—<q>Say +not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down:) or, Who shall descend into the +abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, +and in thy heart.</q></emph> Lotze, Metaphysics, § 256, quoted in Illingworth, Divine Immanence, +135, 136. Sunday-school scholar: <q>Is God in my pocket?</q> <q>Certainly.</q> <q>No, he +isn't, for I haven't any pocket.</q> God is omnipresent so long as there is a universe, +but he ceases to be omnipresent when the universe ceases to be. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Omniscience.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean God's perfect and eternal knowledge of all things which +are objects of knowledge, whether they be actual or possible, past, present, +or future. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God knows his inanimate creation: <emph>Ps. 147:4—<q>counteth the number of the stars; He calleth them all +by their names.</q></emph> He has knowledge of brute creatures: <emph>Mat. 10:29</emph>—sparrows—<emph><q>not one of them +shall fall on the ground without your Father.</q></emph> Of men and their works: <emph>Ps. 33:13-15—<q>beholdeth all the +sons of men ... considereth all their works.</q></emph> Of hearts of men and their thoughts: <emph>Acts 15:8—<q>God, +who knoweth the heart</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 139:2—<q>understandest my thought afar off.</q></emph> Of our wants: <emph>Mat. 6:8—<q>knoweth +what things ye have need of.</q></emph> Of the least things: <emph>Mat. 10:30—<q>the very hairs of your head are +all numbered.</q></emph> Of the past: <emph>Mal. 3:16—<q>book of remembrance.</q></emph> Of the future: <emph>Is. 46:9, 10—<q>declaring +the end from the beginning.</q></emph> Of men's future free acts: <emph>Is. 44:28—<q>that saith of Cyrus, He is my +shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure.</q></emph> Of men's future evil acts: <emph>Acts 2:23—<q>him, being delivered +up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.</q></emph> Of the ideally possible: <emph>1 Sam. 23:12—<q>Will +the men of Keilah deliver up me and my men into the hands of Saul? And Jehovah said, They will deliver thee up</q></emph> +(<hi rend='italic'>sc.</hi> if thou remainest); <emph>Mat. 11:23—<q>if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, +it would have remained.</q></emph> From eternity: <emph>Acts 15:18—<q>the Lord, who maketh these things known from of +old.</q></emph> Incomprehensible: <emph>Ps. 139:6—<q>Such knowledge is too wonderful for me</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 11:33—<q>O the +depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.</q></emph> Related to wisdom: <emph>Ps. 104:24—<q>In +wisdom hast thou made them all</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 3:10—<q>manifold wisdom of God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Job 7:20—<q>O thou watcher of men</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 56:8—<q>Thou numberest my wanderings</q></emph> = my whole life has +been one continuous exile; <emph><q>Put thou my tears into thy bottle</q></emph> = the skin bottle of the east,—there +are tears enough to fill one; <emph><q>Are they not in thy book?</q></emph> = no tear has fallen to the +ground unnoted,—God has gathered them all. Paul Gerhardt: <q>Du zählst wie oft +ein Christe wein', Und was sein Kummer sei; Kein stilles Thränlein ist so klein, +Du hebst und legst es bei.</q> <emph>Heb. 4:13—<q>there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all +<pb n='283'/><anchor id='Pg283'/> +things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do</q></emph>—τετραχηλισμένα—with +head bent back and neck laid bare, as animals slaughtered in sacrifice, <emph>or</emph> seized by the +throat and thrown on the back, so that the priest might discover whether there was +any blemish. Japanese proverb: <q>God has forgotten to forget.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The omniscience of God may be argued from his omnipresence, as +well as from his truth or self-knowledge, in which the plan of creation has +its eternal ground, and from prophecy, which expresses God's omniscience. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is to be remembered that omniscience, as the designation of a relative and transitive +attribute, does not include God's self-knowledge. The term is used in the technical +sense of God's knowledge of all things that pertain to the universe of his creation. +H. A. Gordon: <q>Light travels faster than sound. You can see the flash of fire from +the cannon's mouth, a mile away, considerably before the noise of the discharge reaches +the ear. God flashed the light of prediction upon the pages of his word, and we see it. +Wait a little and we see the event itself.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, The Conception of God, 9—<q>An omniscient being would be one who simply +found presented to him, not by virtue of fragmentary and gradually completed processes +of inquiry, but by virtue of an all-embracing, direct and transparent insight into +his own truth—who found thus presented to him, I say, the complete, the fulfilled +answer to every genuinely rational question.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Browning, Ferishtah's Fancies, Plot-culture: <q>How will it fare shouldst thou +impress on me That certainly an Eye is over all And each, to make the minute's deed, +word, thought As worthy of reward and punishment? Shall I permit my sense an Eye-viewed +shame, Broad daylight perpetration,—so to speak,—I had not dared to breathe +within the Ear, With black night's help around me?</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Since it is free from all imperfection, God's knowledge is immediate, +as distinguished from the knowledge that comes through sense or imagination; +simultaneous, as not acquired by successive observations, or built +up by processes of reasoning; distinct, as free from all vagueness or confusion; +true, as perfectly corresponding to the reality of things; eternal, +as comprehended in one timeless act of the divine mind. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +An infinite mind must always act, and must always act in an absolutely perfect +manner. There is in God no sense, symbol, memory, abstraction, growth, reflection, +reasoning,—his knowledge is all direct and without intermediaries. God was properly +represented by the ancient Egyptians, not as having eye, but as being eye. His +thoughts toward us are <emph><q>more than can be numbered</q> (Ps. 40:5)</emph>, not because there is succession +in them, now a remembering and now a forgetting, but because there is never a +moment of our existence in which we are out of his mind; he is always thinking of +us. See Charnock, Attributes, 1:406-497. <emph>Gen. 16:13—<q>Thou art a God that seeth.</q></emph> Mivart, Lessons +from Nature, 374—<q>Every creature of every order of existence, while its existence +is sustained, is so complacently contemplated by God, that the intense and concentrated +attention of all men of science together upon it could but form an utterly +inadequate symbol of such divine contemplation.</q> So God's scrutiny of every deed of +darkness is more searching than the gaze of a whole Coliseum of spectators, and his eye +is more watchful over the good than would be the united care of all his hosts in heaven +and earth. +</p> + +<p> +Armstrong, God and the Soul: <q>God's energy is concentrated attention, attention +concentrated everywhere. We can attend to two or three things at once; the pianist +plays and talks at the same time; the magician does one thing while he seems to do +another. God attends to all things, does all things, at once.</q> Marie Corelli, Master +Christian, 104—<q>The biograph is a hint that every scene of human life is reflected in a +ceaseless moving panorama <emph>some where</emph>, for the beholding of <emph>some one</emph>.</q> Wireless +telegraphy is a stupendous warning that from God no secrets are hid, that <emph><q>there is nothing +covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known</q> (Mat. 10:26)</emph>. The Röntgen rays, +which take photographs of our insides, right through our clothes, and even in the +darkness of midnight, show that to God <emph><q>the night shineth as the day</q> (Ps. 139:12)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Professor Mitchel's equatorial telescope, slowly moving by clockwork, toward sunset, +suddenly touched the horizon and disclosed a boy in a tree stealing apples, but the +boy was all unconscious that he was under the gaze of the astronomer. Nothing was +<pb n='284'/><anchor id='Pg284'/> +so fearful to the prisoner in the French <foreign lang='fr' rend='italic'>cachot</foreign> as the eye of the guard that never +ceased to watch him in perfect silence through the loophole in the door. As in the +Roman empire the whole world was to a malefactor one great prison, and in his flight +to the most distant lands the emperor could track him, so under the government of +God no sinner can escape the eye of his Judge. But omnipresence is protective as well +as detective. The text <emph>Gen. 16:13—<q>Thou, God, seest me</q></emph>—has been used as a restraint from +evil more than as a stimulus to good. To the child of the devil it should certainly be +the former. But to the child of God it should as certainly be the latter. God should +not be regarded as an exacting overseer or a standing threat, but rather as one who +understands us, loves us, and helps us. <emph>Ps. 139:17, 18—<q>How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, +O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I +awake, I am still with thee.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Since God knows things as they are, he knows the necessary +sequences of his creation as necessary, the free acts of his creatures as free, +the ideally possible as ideally possible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God knows what would have taken place under circumstances not now present; +knows what the universe would have been, had he chosen a different plan of creation; +knows what our lives would have been, had we made different decisions in the past +(<emph>Is. 48:18—<q>Oh that thou hadst hearkened ... then had thy peace been as a river</q></emph>). Clarke, Christian +Theology, 77—<q>God has a double knowledge of his universe. He knows it as it exists +eternally in his mind, as his own idea; and he knows it as actually existing in time and +space, a moving, changing, growing universe, with perpetual process of succession. +In his own idea, he knows it all at once; but he is also aware of its perpetual becoming, +and with reference to events as they occur he has foreknowledge, present knowledge, +and knowledge afterwards.... He conceives of all things simultaneously, but observes +all things in their succession.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Royce, World and Individual, 2:374—holds that God does not temporally foreknow +anything except as he is expressed in finite beings, but yet that the Absolute possesses +a perfect knowledge at one glance of the whole of the temporal order, present, past +and future. This, he says, is not foreknowledge, but eternal knowledge. Priestley +denied that any contingent event could be an object of knowledge. But Reid says the +denial that any free action can be foreseen involves the denial of God's own free +agency, since God's future actions can be foreseen by men; also that while God foresees +his own free actions, this does not determine those actions necessarily. Tennyson, +In Memoriam, 26—<q>And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power +to see Within the green the mouldered tree, And towers fallen as soon as built—Oh, +if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more +And Love the indifference to be, Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither +over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To shroud me from my proper +scorn.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The fact that there is nothing in the present condition of things +from which the future actions of free creatures necessarily follow by natural +law does not prevent God from foreseeing such actions, since his +knowledge is not mediate, but immediate. He not only foreknows the +motives which will occasion men's acts, but he directly foreknows the acts +themselves. The possibility of such direct knowledge without assignable +grounds of knowledge is apparent if we admit that time is a form of finite +thought to which the divine mind is not subject. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Aristotle maintained that there is no certain knowledge of contingent future events. +Socinus, in like manner, while he admitted that God knows all things that are knowable, +abridged the objects of the divine knowledge by withdrawing from the number +those objects whose future existence he considered as uncertain, such as the determinations +of free agents. These, he held, cannot be certainly foreknown, because there is +nothing in the present condition of things from which they will necessarily follow by +natural law. The man who makes a clock can tell when it will strike. But free-will, +not being subject to mechanical laws, cannot have its acts predicted or foreknown. +God knows things only in their causes—future events only in their antecedents. John +Milton seems also to deny God's foreknowledge of free acts: <q>So, without least impulse +or shadow of fate, Or aught by me immutably foreseen, They trespass.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='285'/><anchor id='Pg285'/> + +<p> +With this Socinian doctrine some Arminians agree, as McCabe, in his Foreknowledge +of God, and in his Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity. McCabe, +however, sacrifices the principle of free will, in defence of which he makes this surrender +of God's foreknowledge, by saying that in cases of fulfilled prophecy, like Peter's +denial and Judas's betrayal, God brought special influences to bear to secure the result,—so +that Peter's and Judas's wills acted irresponsibly under the law of cause and effect. +He quotes Dr. Daniel Curry as declaring that <q>the denial of absolute divine foreknowledge +is the essential complement of the Methodist theology, without which its +philosophical incompleteness is defenceless against the logical consistency of Calvinism.</q> +See also article by McCabe in Methodist Review, Sept. 1892:760-773. Also Simon, +Reconciliation, 287—<q>God has constituted a creature, the actions of which he can only +know as such when they are performed. In presence of man, to a certain extent, even +the great God condescends to wait; nay more, has himself so ordained things that he +must wait, inquiring, <q>What will he do?</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +So Dugald Stewart: <q>Shall we venture to affirm that it exceeds the power of God to +permit such a train of contingent events to take place as his own foreknowledge shall +not extend to?</q> Martensen holds this view, and Rothe, Theologische Ethik, 1:212-234, +who declares that the free choices of men are continually increasing the knowledge +of God. So also Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:279—<q>The belief in the divine foreknowledge +of our future has no basis in philosophy. We no longer deem it true that +even God knows the moment of my moral life that is coming next. Even he does not +know whether I shall yield to the secret temptation at midday. To him life is a drama +of which he knows not the conclusion.</q> Then, says Dr. A. J. Gordon, there is nothing +so dreary and dreadful as to be living under the direction of such a God. The universe +is rushing on like an express-train in the darkness without headlight or engineer; at +any moment we may be plunged into the abyss. Lotze does not deny God's foreknowledge +of free human actions, but he regards as insoluble by the intellect the problem +of the relation of time to God, and such foreknowledge as <q>one of those postulates as +to which we know not how they can be fulfilled.</q> Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 159—<q>Foreknowledge +of a free act is a knowledge without assignable grounds of knowing. +On the assumption of a real time, it is hard to find a way out of this difficulty.... The +doctrine of the ideality of time helps us by suggesting the possibility of an all-embracing +present, or an eternal now, for God. In that case the problem vanishes with time, its +condition.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Against the doctrine of the divine nescience we urge not only our fundamental conviction +of God's perfection, but the constant testimony of Scripture. In <emph>Is. 41:21, 22</emph>, God +makes his foreknowledge the test of his Godhead in the controversy with idols. If God +cannot foreknow free human acts, then <emph><q>the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the +world</q> (Rev. 13:8)</emph> was only a sacrifice to be offered <emph>in case</emph> Adam should fall, God not +knowing whether he would or not, and <emph>in case</emph> Judas should betray Christ, God not +knowing whether he would or not. Indeed, since the course of nature is changed by +man's will when he burns towns and fells forests, God cannot on this theory predict +even the course of nature. All prophecy is therefore a protest against this view. +</p> + +<p> +How God foreknows free human decisions we may not be able to say, but then the +method of God's knowledge in many other respects is unknown to us. The following +explanations have been proposed. God may foreknow free acts:— +</p> + +<p> +1. <hi rend='italic'>Mediately</hi>, by foreknowing the motives of these acts, and this either because these +motives induce the acts, (1) necessarily, or (2) certainly. This last <q>certainly</q> is to be +accepted, if either; since motives are never <emph>causes</emph>, but are only <emph>occasions</emph>, of action. +The cause is the will, or the man himself. But it may be said that foreknowing acts +through their motives is not foreknowing at all, but is reasoning or inference rather. +Moreover, although intelligent beings commonly act according to motives previously +dominant, they also at critical epochs, as at the fall of Satan and of Adam, choose +between motives, and in such cases knowledge of the motives which have hitherto +actuated them gives no clue to their next decisions. Another statement is therefore +proposed to meet these difficulties, namely, that God may foreknow free acts:— +</p> + +<p> +2. <hi rend='italic'>Immediately</hi>, by pure intuition, inexplicable to us. Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, +2:203, 225—<q>If God can know a future event as certain only by a calculation of causes, +it must be allowed that he cannot with certainty foreknow any free act of man; for +his foreknowledge would then be proof that the act in question was the necessary consequence +of certain causes, and was not in itself free. If, on the contrary, the divine +knowledge be regarded as <emph>intuitive</emph>, we see that it stands in the same immediate relation +to the act itself as to its antecedents, and thus the difficulty is removed.</q> Even +<pb n='286'/><anchor id='Pg286'/> +upon this view there still remains the difficulty of perceiving how there can be in God's +mind a subjective certitude with regard to acts in respect to which there is no assignable +objective ground of certainty. Yet, in spite of this difficulty, we feel bound both +by Scripture and by our fundamental idea of God's perfection to maintain God's perfect +knowledge of the future free acts of his creatures. With President Pepper we say: +<q>Knowledge of contingency is not necessarily contingent knowledge.</q> With Whedon: +<q>It is not calculation, but pure knowledge.</q> See Dorner, System of Doct., 1:332-337; +2:58-62; Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie, 1858:601-605; Charnock, Attributes, 1:429-446; +Solly, The Will, 240-254. For a valuable article on the whole subject, though advocating +the view that God foreknows acts by foreknowing motives, see Bib. Sac., Oct. +1883:655-694. See also Hill, Divinity, 517. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Prescience is not itself causative. It is not to be confounded with +the predetermining will of God. Free actions do not take place because +they are foreseen, but they are foreseen because they are to take place. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Seeing a thing in the future does not cause it to be, more than seeing a thing in the +past causes it to be. As to future events, we may say with Whedon: <q>Knowledge +<emph>takes</emph> them, not <emph>makes</emph> them.</q> Foreknowledge may, and does, presuppose predetermination, +but it is not itself predetermination. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa, 1:38:1:1, +says that <q>the knowledge of God is the cause of things</q>; but he is obliged to add: +<q>God is not the cause of all things that are known by God, since evil things that are +known by God are not from him.</q> John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 3—<q>Foreknowledge +had no influence on their fault, Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) Omniscience embraces the actual and the possible, but it does not +embrace the self-contradictory and the impossible, because these are not +objects of knowledge. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God does not know what the result would be if two and two made five, nor does he +know <q>whether a chimæra ruminating in a vacuum devoureth second intentions</q>; +and that, simply for the reason that he cannot know self-contradiction and nonsense. +These things are not objects of knowledge. Clarke, Christian Theology, 80—<q>Can God +make an old man in a minute? Could he make it well with the wicked while they +remained wicked? Could he create a world in which 2 + 2 = 5?</q> Royce, Spirit of +Modern Philosophy, 366—<q>Does God know the whole number that is the square root +of 65? or what adjacent hills there are that have no valleys between them? Does God +know round squares, and sugar salt-lumps, and Snarks and Boojums and Abracadabras?</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) Omniscience, as qualified by holy will, is in Scripture denominated +<q>wisdom.</q> In virtue of his wisdom God chooses the highest ends and +uses the fittest means to accomplish them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Wisdom is not simply <q>estimating all things at their proper value</q> (Olmstead); it +has in it also the element of counsel and purpose. It has been defined as <q>the talent of +using one's talents.</q> It implies two things: first, choice of the highest end; secondly, +choice of the best means to secure this end. J. C. C. Clarke, Self and the Father, 39—<q>Wisdom +is not invented conceptions, or harmony of theories with theories; but is +humble obedience of mind to the reception of facts that are found in things.</q> Thus +man's wisdom, obedience, faith, are all names for different aspects of the same thing. +And wisdom in God is the moral choice which makes truth and holiness supreme. Bowne, +Principles of Ethics, 261—<q>Socialism pursues a laudable end by unwise or destructive +means. It is not enough to mean well. Our methods must take some account of the +nature of things, if they are to succeed. We cannot produce well-being by law. No +legislation can remove inequalities of nature and constitution. Society cannot produce +equality, any more than it can enable a rhinoceros to sing, or legislate a cat into a lion.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Omnipotence.</head> + +<p> +By this we mean the power of God to do all things which are objects of +power, whether with or without the use of means. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 17:1—<q>I am God Almighty.</q></emph> He performs natural wonders: <emph>Gen. 1:1-3—<q>Let there be Light</q></emph>; +<emph>Is. 44:24—<q>stretcheth forth the heavens alone</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q>upholding all things by the word of his power.</q></emph> +Spiritual wonders: <emph>2 Cor. 4:6—<q>God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts</q></emph>; +<pb n='287'/><anchor id='Pg287'/> +<emph>Eph. 1:19—<q>exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 3:20—<q>able to do exceeding abundantly.</q></emph> +Power to create new things: <emph>Mat. 3:9—<q>able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham</q></emph>. +<emph>Rom. 4:17—<q>giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were.</q></emph> After his own +pleasure: <emph>Ps. 115:3—<q>He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:11—<q>worketh all things after the +counsel of his will.</q></emph> Nothing impossible: <emph>Gen 18:14—<q>Is anything too hard for Jehovah?</q></emph> <emph>Mat. 19:26—<q>with +God all things are possible.</q></emph> E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 73—<q>If all power +in the universe is dependent on his creative will for its existence, it is impossible to conceive +any limit to his power except that laid on it by his own will. But this is only +negative proof; absolute omnipotence is not logically demonstrable, though readily +enough recognized as a just conception of the infinite God, when propounded on the +authority of a positive revelation.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The omnipotence of God is illustrated by the work of the Holy Spirit, which in Scripture +is compared to wind, water and fire. The ordinary manifestations of these elements +afford no criterion of the effects they are able to produce. The rushing mighty +wind at Pentecost was the analogue of the wind-Spirit who bore everything before +him on the first day of creation (<emph>Gen. 1:2</emph>; <emph>John 3:8</emph>; <emph>Acts 2:2</emph>). The pouring out of the +Spirit is likened to the flood of Noah when the windows of heaven were opened and +there was not room enough to receive that which fell (<emph>Mal. 3:10</emph>). And the baptism of +the Holy Spirit is like the fire that shall destroy all impurity at the end of the world +(<emph>Mat. 3:11</emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 3:7-13</emph>). See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 307-310. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Omnipotence does not imply power to do that which is not an object +of power; as, for example, that which is self-contradictory or contradictory +to the nature of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Self-contradictory things: <q>facere factum infectum</q>—the making of a past event to +have not occurred (hence the uselessness of praying: <q>May it be that much good was +done</q>); drawing a shorter than a straight line between two given points; putting two +separate mountains together without a valley between them. Things contradictory to +the nature of God: for God to lie, to sin, to die. To do such things would not imply +power, but impotence. God has all the power that is consistent with infinite perfection—all +power to do what is worthy of himself. So no greater thing can be said +by man than this: <q>I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is +none.</q> Even God cannot make wrong to be right, nor hatred of himself to be blessed. +Some have held that the prevention of sin in a moral system is not an object of power, +and therefore that God cannot prevent sin in a moral system. We hold the contrary; +see this Compendium: Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees. +</p> + +<p> +Dryden, Imitation of Horace, 3:29:71—<q>Over the past not heaven itself has power; +What has been has, and I have had my hour</q>—words applied by Lord John Russell to +his own career. Emerson, The Past: <q>All is now secure and fast, Not the gods can +shake the Past.</q> Sunday-school scholar: <q>Say, teacher, can God make a rock so big +that he can't lift it?</q> Seminary Professor: <q>Can God tell a lie?</q> Seminary student: +<q>With God all things are possible.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Omnipotence does not imply the exercise of all his power on the +part of God. He has power over his power; in other words, his power is +under the control of wise and holy will. God can do all he will, but he +will not do all he can. Else his power is mere force acting necessarily, +and God is the slave of his own omnipotence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Schleiermacher held that nature not only is grounded in the divine causality, but +fully expresses that causality; there is no causative power in God for anything that is +not real and actual. This doctrine does not essentially differ from Spinoza's <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura +naturans</foreign> and <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura naturata</foreign>. See Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:62-66. But omnipotence +is not instinctive; it is a power used according to God's pleasure. God is by +no means encompassed by the laws of nature, or shut up to a necessary evolution of +his own being, as pantheism supposes. As Rothe has shown, God has a will-power +over his nature-power, and is not compelled to do all that he can do. He is able from +the stones of the street to <q>raise up children unto Abraham,</q> but he has not done it. +In God are unopened treasures, an inexhaustible fountain of new beginnings, new +creations, new revelations. To suppose that in creation he has expended all the inner +possibilities of his being is to deny his omnipotence. So <emph>Job 26:14—<q>Lo, these are but the outskirts +<pb n='288'/><anchor id='Pg288'/> +of his ways: And how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?</q></emph> +See Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 10; Hodgson, Time and Space, 579, 580. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>1 Pet. 5:6—<q>Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God</q></emph>—his mighty hand of providence, +salvation, blessing—<emph><q>that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon him, because +he careth for you.</q></emph> <q>The mighty powers held under mighty control</q>—this is the greatest +exhibition of power. Unrestraint is not the highest freedom. Young men must learn +that self-restraint is the true power. <emph>Prov. 16:32—<q>He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; +And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.</q></emph> Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 2:3—<q>We have +power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do.</q> When +dynamite goes off, it all goes off: there is no reserve. God uses as much of his power +as he pleases: the remainder of wrath in himself, as well as in others, he restrains. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Omnipotence in God does not exclude, but implies, the power of self-limitation. +Since all such self-limitation is free, proceeding from neither +external nor internal compulsion, it is the act and manifestation of God's +power. Human freedom is not rendered impossible by the divine omnipotence, +but exists by virtue of it. It is an act of omnipotence when God +humbles himself to the taking of human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Thomasius: <q>If God is to be over all and in all, he cannot himself be all.</q> <emph>Ps. 113: 5, 6—<q>Who +is like unto Jehovah our God.... That humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in +the earth?</q></emph> <emph>Phil. 2:7, 8—<q>emptied himself ... humbled himself.</q></emph> See Charnock, Attributes, 2:5-107. +President Woolsey showed true power when he controlled his indignation and let +an offending student go free. Of Christ on the cross, says Moberly, Atonement and +Personality, 116—<q>It was the power [to retain his life, to escape suffering], with the +will to hold it unused, which proved him to be what he was, the obedient and perfect +man.</q> We are likest the omnipotent One when we limit ourselves for love's sake. +The attribute of omnipotence is the ground of trust, as well as of fear, on the part of +God's creatures. Isaac Watts: <q>His every word of grace is strong As that which built +the skies; The voice that rolls the stars along Speaks all the promises.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Third Division.—Attributes having relation to Moral Beings.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Veracity and Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth.</head> + +<p> +By veracity and faithfulness we mean the transitive truth of God, in its +twofold relation to his creatures in general and to his redeemed people in +particular. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 138:2—<q>I will ... give thanks unto thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: For thou hast +magnified thy word above all thy name</q></emph>; <emph>John 3:33—<q>hath set his seal to this, that God is true</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 3:4—<q>let +God be found true, but every man a liar</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 1:25—<q>the truth of God</q></emph>; <emph>John 14:17—<q>the Spirit of truth</q></emph>; +<emph>1 John 5:7—<q>the Spirit is the truth</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 1:9—<q>God is faithful</q></emph>; <emph>1 Thess. 5:24—<q>faithful is he that calleth +you</q></emph>; <emph>1 Pet. 4:19—<q>a faithful Creator</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 1:20—<q>how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the +yea</q></emph>; <emph>Num. 23:19—<q>God is not a man that he should lie</q></emph>; <emph>Tit. 1:2—<q>God, who cannot lie, promised</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. +6:18—<q>in which it is impossible for God to lie.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In virtue of his veracity, all his revelations to creatures consist with +his essential being and with each other. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In God's veracity we have the guarantee that our faculties in their normal exercise +do not deceive us; that the laws of thought are also laws of things; that the external +world, and second causes in it, have objective existence; that the same causes will +always produce the same effects; that the threats of the moral nature will be executed +upon the unrepentant transgressor; that man's moral nature is made in the image of +God's; and that we may draw just conclusions from what conscience is in us to what +holiness is in him. We may therefore expect that all past revelations, whether in nature +or in his word, will not only not be contradicted by our future knowledge, but will rather +prove to have in them more of truth than we ever dreamed. Man's word may pass +away, but God's word abides forever (<emph>Mat. 5:18—<q>one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from +the law</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 40:8—<q>the word of God shall stand forever</q></emph>). +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 6:16—<q>be not as the hypocrites.</q></emph> In God the outer expression and the inward reality +always correspond. Assyrian wills were written on a small tablet encased in another +upon which the same thing was written over again. Breakage, or falsification, of the +<pb n='289'/><anchor id='Pg289'/> +outer envelope could be corrected by reference to the inner. So our outer life should +conform to the heart within, and the heart within to the outer life. On the duty of +speaking the truth, and the limitations of the duty, see Newman Smyth, Christian +Ethics, 386-403—<q>Give the truth always to those who in the bonds of humanity have +a right to the truth; conceal it, or falsify it, only when the human right to the truth +has been forfeited, or is held in abeyance, by sickness, weakness, or some criminal +intent.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) In virtue of his faithfulness, he fulfills all his promises to his people, +whether expressed in words or implied in the constitution he has given +them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In God's faithfulness we have the sure ground of confidence that he will perform +what his love has led him to promise to those who obey the gospel. Since his promises +are based, not upon what we are or have done, but upon what Christ is and has done, our +defects and errors do not invalidate them, so long as we are truly penitent and believing: +<emph>1 John 1:9—<q>faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins</q></emph> = faithful to his promise, and righteous +to Christ. God's faithfulness also ensures a supply for all the real wants of our +being, both here and hereafter, since these wants are implicit promises of him who +made us: <emph>Ps. 84:11—<q>No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly</q></emph>; <emph>91:4—<q>His truth is a +shield and a buckler</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 6:33—<q>all these things shall be added unto you</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 2:9—<q>Things which eye saw +not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love +him.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Regulus goes back to Carthage to die rather than break his promise to his enemies. +George William Curtis economizes for years, and gives up all hope of being himself +a rich man, in order that he may pay the debts of his deceased father. When General +Grant sold all the presents made to him by the crowned heads of Europe, and paid the +obligations in which his insolvent son had involved him, he said: <q>Better poverty and +honor, than wealth and disgrace.</q> Many a business man would rather die than fail to +fulfil his promise and let his note go to protest. <q>Maxwelton braes are bonnie, Where +early falls the dew, And 'twas there that Annie Laurie Gave me her promise true; +Which ne'er forget will I; And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee.</q> +Betray the man she loves? Not <q>Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks +melt wi'the sun.</q> God's truth will not be less than that of mortal man. God's veracity +is the natural correlate to our faith. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive Love.</head> + +<p> +By mercy and goodness we mean the transitive love of God in its two-fold +relation to the disobedient and to the obedient portions of his +creatures. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Titus 3:4—<q>his love toward man</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 2:4—<q>goodness of God</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 5:44, 45—<q>love your enemies ... +that ye may be sons of your Father</q></emph>; <emph>John 3:16—<q>God so loved the world</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 1:3—<q>granted unto us all +things that pertain unto life and godliness</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:32—<q>freely give us all things</q></emph>; <emph>John 4:10—<q>Herein is +love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.</q></emph> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Mercy is that eternal principle of God's nature which leads him to +seek the temporal good and eternal salvation of those who have opposed +themselves to his will, even at the cost of infinite self-sacrifice. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Martensen: <q>Viewed in relation to sin, eternal love is compassionate grace.</q> God's +continued importation of natural life is a foreshadowing, in a lower sphere, of what he +desires to do for his creatures in the higher sphere—the communication of spiritual +and eternal life through Jesus Christ. When he bids us love our enemies, he only bids +us follow his own example. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, 2:2—<q>Wilt thou draw +near the nature of the gods? Draw near them, then, in being merciful.</q> Twelfth +Night, 3:4—<q>In nature there's no blemish but the mind; None can be called deformed +but the unkind. Virtue is beauty.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Goodness is the eternal principle of God's nature which leads him to +communicate of his own life and blessedness to those who are like him in +moral character. Goodness, therefore, is nearly identical with the love of +complacency; mercy, with the love of benevolence. +</p> + +<pb n='290'/><anchor id='Pg290'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Notice, however, that transitive love is but an outward manifestation of immanent +love. The eternal and perfect object of God's love is in his own nature. Men become +subordinate objects of that love only as they become connected and identified with its +principal object, the image of God's perfections in Christ. Only in the Son do men +become sons of God. To this is requisite an acceptance of Christ on the part of man. +Thus it can be said that God imparts himself to men just so far as men are willing to +receive him. And as God gives himself to men, in all his moral attributes, to answer +for them and to renew them in character, there is truth in the statement of Nordell +(Examiner, Jan. 17, 1884) that <q>the maintenance of holiness is the function of divine +justice; the diffusion of holiness is the function of divine love.</q> We may grant this +as substantially true, while yet we deny that love is a mere form or manifestation of +holiness. Self-impartation is different from self-affirmation. The attribute which moves +God to pour out is not identical with the attribute which moves him to maintain. +The two ideas of holiness and of love are as distinct as the idea of integrity on the one +hand and of generosity on the other. Park: <q>God loves Satan, in a certain sense, and +we ought to.</q> Shedd: <q>This same love of compassion God feels toward the non-elect; +but the expression of that compassion is forbidden for reasons which are sufficient for +God, but are entirely unknown to the creature.</q> The goodness of God is the basis of +<emph>reward</emph>, under God's government. Faithfulness leads God to keep his promises; goodness +leads him to make them. +</p> + +<p> +Edwards, Nature of Virtue, in Works, 2:263—Love of benevolence does not presuppose +beauty in its object. Love of complacence does presuppose beauty. Virtue is +not love to an object for its beauty. The beauty of intelligent beings does not consist +in love for beauty, or virtue in love for virtue. Virtue is love for being in general, +exercised in a general good will. This is the doctrine of Edwards. We prefer to say +that virtue is love, not for being in general, but for good being, and so for God, the +holy One. The love of compassion is perfectly compatible with hatred of evil and +with indignation against one who commits it. Love does not necessarily imply approval, +but it does imply desire that all creatures should fulfil the purpose of their existence +by being morally conformed to the holy One; see Godet, in The Atonement, 339. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Rom. 5:8—<q>God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.</q></emph> +We ought to love our enemies, and Satan is our worst enemy. We ought to will the +good of Satan, or cherish toward him the love of benevolence, though not the love of +complacence. This does not involve a condoning of his sin, or an ignoring of his moral +depravity, as seems implied in the verses of Wm. C. Gannett: <q>The poem hangs on the +berry-bush When comes the poet's eye; The street begins to masquerade When +Shakespeare passes by. The Christ sees white in Judas' heart And loves his traitor +well; The God, to angel his new heaven, Explores his deepest hell.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness.</head> + +<p> +By justice and righteousness we mean the transitive holiness of God, in +virtue of which his treatment of his creatures conforms to the purity of his +nature,—righteousness demanding from all moral beings conformity to the +moral perfection of God, and justice visiting non-conformity to that perfection +with penal loss or suffering. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 18:25—<q>shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?</q></emph> <emph>Deut. 32:4—<q>All his ways are justice; A God of +faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 5:5—<q>Thou hatest all workers of iniquity</q></emph>; <emph>7:9-12—<q>the +righteous God trieth the hearts ... saveth the upright ... is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath +indignation every day</q></emph>; <emph>18:24-26—<q>Jehovah recompensed me according to my righteousness.... With the +merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful ... with the perverse thou wilt show thyself froward</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 5:48—<q>Ye +therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 2:6—<q>will render to every man according to his +works</q></emph>; <emph>1 Pet. 1:16—<q>Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.</q></emph> These passages show that God loves the +same persons whom he hates. It is not true that he hates the sin, but loves the sinner; +he both hates and loves the sinner himself, hates him as he is a living and wilful antagonist +of truth and holiness, loves him as he is a creature capable of good and ruined by +his transgression. +</p> + +<p> +There is no abstract sin that can be hated apart from the persons in whom that sin +is represented and embodied. Thomas Fuller found it difficult to starve the profaneness +but to feed the person of the impudent beggar who applied to him for food. Mr. +<pb n='291'/><anchor id='Pg291'/> +Finney declared that he would kill the slave-catcher, but would love him with all his +heart. In our civil war Dr. Kirk said: <q>God knows that we love the rebels, but God +also knows that we will kill them if they do not lay down their arms.</q> The complex +nature of God not only permits but necessitates this same double treatment of the +sinner, and the earthly father experiences the same conflict of emotions when his +heart yearns over the corrupt son whom he is compelled to banish from the household. +Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 7—<q>It is the sinner who is punished, not the sin.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Since justice and righteousness are simply transitive holiness—righteousness +designating this holiness chiefly in its mandatory, justice +chiefly in its punitive, aspect,—they are not mere manifestations of benevolence, +or of God's disposition to secure the highest happiness of his +creatures, nor are they grounded in the nature of things as something +apart from or above God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Cremer, N. T. Lexicon: δίκαιος = <q>the perfect coincidence existing between God's +nature, which is the standard for all, and his acts.</q> Justice and righteousness are +simply holiness exercised toward creatures. The same holiness which exists in God in +eternity past manifests itself as justice and righteousness, so soon as intelligent creatures +come into being. Much that was said under Holiness as an immanent attribute +of God is equally applicable here. The modern tendency to confound holiness with +love shows itself in the merging of justice and righteousness in mere benevolence. +Instances of this tendency are the following: Ritschl, Unterricht, § 16—<q>The righteousness +of God denotes the manner in which God carries out his loving will in the redemption +alike of humanity as a whole and of individual men; hence his righteousness is +indistinguishable from his grace</q>; see also Ritschl, Rechtf. und Versöhnung, 2:113; +3:296. Prof. George M. Forbes: <q>Only right makes love moral; only love makes right +moral.</q> Jones, Robert Browning, 70—<q>Is it not beneficence that places death at the +heart of sin? Carlyle forgot this. God is not simply a great taskmaster. The power +that imposes law is not an alien power.</q> D'Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 237-240—<q>How +can self-realization be the realization of others? Why must the true good be +always the common good? Why is the end of each the end of all?... We need a +concrete universal which will unify all persons.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So also, Harris, Kingdom of Christ on Earth, 39-42; God the Creator, 287, 290, 302—<q>Love, +as required and regulated by reason, may be called righteousness. Love is universal +good will or benevolence, regulated in its exercise by righteousness. Love is +the choice of God and man as the objects of trust and service. This choice involves +the determination of the will to seek universal well-being, and in this aspect it is +benevolence. It also involves the consent of the will to the reason, and the determination +to regulate all action in seeking well-being by its truths, laws, and ideals; and in +this aspect it is righteousness.... Justice is the consent of the will to the law of love, +in its authority, its requirements, and its sanctions. God's wrath is the necessary +reaction of this law of love in the constitution and order of the universe against the +wilful violator of it, and Christ's sufferings atone for sin by asserting and maintaining +the authority, universality, and inviolability of God's law of love in his redemption of +men and his forgiveness of their sins.... Righteousness cannot be the whole of +love, for this would shut us up to the merely formal principle of the law without telling +us what the law requires. Benevolence cannot be the whole of love, for this +would shut us up to hedonism, in the form of utilitarianism, excluding righteousness +from the character of God and man.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Newman Smyth also, in his Christian Ethics, 227-231, tells us that <q>love, as self-affirming, +is righteousness; as self-imparting, is benevolence; as self-finding in others, is +sympathy. Righteousness, as subjective regard for our own moral being, is holiness; +as objective regard for the persons of others, is justice. Holiness is involved in love +as its essential respect to itself; the heavenly Father is the holy Father (<emph>John 17:11</emph>). +Love contains in its unity a trinity of virtue. Love affirms its own worthiness, imparts +to others its good, and finds its life again in the well-being of others. The ethical limit +of self-impartation is found in self-affirmation. Love in self-bestowal cannot become +suicidal. The benevolence of love has its moral bounds in the holiness of love. True +love in God maintains its transcendence, and excludes pantheism.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='292'/><anchor id='Pg292'/> + +<p> +The above doctrine, quoted for substance from Newman Smyth, seems to us unwarrantably +to include in love what properly belongs to holiness. It virtually denies that +holiness has any independent existence as an attribute of God. To make holiness a +manifestation of love seems to us as irrational as to say that self-affirmation is a form +of self-impartation. The concession that holiness regulates and limits love shows that +holiness cannot itself be love, but must be an independent and superior attribute. +Right furnishes the rule and law for love, but it is not true that love furnishes the rule +and law for right. There is no such double sovereignty as this theory would imply. +The one attribute that is independent and supreme is holiness, and love is simply the +impulse to communicate this holiness. +</p> + +<p> +William Ashmore: <q>Dr. Clarke lays great emphasis on the character of <q>a good God.</q>... +But he is more than a merely <emph>good</emph> God; he is a just God, and a righteous God, and +a holy God—a God who is <q>angry with the wicked,</q> even while ready to forgive them, +if they are willing to repent in his way, and not in their own. He is the God who +brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly; who rained down fire and brimstone +from heaven; and who is to come in <q>flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that +know not God</q> and obey not the gospel of his son.... Paul reasoned about both +the <q>goodness</q> and the <q>severity</q> of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Transitive holiness, as righteousness, imposes law in conscience and +Scripture, and may be called legislative holiness. As justice, it executes +the penalties of law, and may be called distributive or judicial holiness. +In righteousness God reveals chiefly his love of holiness; in justice, chiefly +his hatred of sin. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The self-affirming purity of God demands a like purity in those who have been made +in his image. As God wills and maintains his own moral excellence, so all creatures +must will and maintain the moral excellence of God. There can be only one centre in +the solar system,—the sun is its own centre and the centre for all the planets also. So +God's purity is the object of his own will,—it must be the object of all the wills of all +his creatures also. Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 282—<q>It is not rational or safe for the +hand to separate itself from the heart. This is a <emph>universe</emph>, and God is the heart of the +great system. Altruism is not the result of society, but society is the result of altruism. +It begins in creatures far below man. The animals which know how to combine have +the greatest chance of survival. The unsociable animal dies out. The most perfect +organism is the most sociable. Right is the debt which the part owes to the whole.</q> +This seems to us but a partial expression of the truth. Right is more than a debt to +others,—it is a debt to one's self, and the self-affirming, self-preserving, self-respecting +element constitutes the limit and standard of all outgoing activity. The sentiment +of loyalty is largely a reverence for this principle of order and stability in government. +<emph>Ps. 145:5—<q>Of the glorious majesty of thine honor, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate</q></emph>; <emph>97:2—<q>Clouds +and darkness are round about him: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +John Milton, Eikonoklastes: <q>Truth and justice are all one; for truth is but justice +in our knowledge, and justice is but truth in our practice.... For truth is +properly no more than contemplation, and her utmost efficiency is but teaching; but +justice in her very essence is all strength and activity, and hath a sword put into her +hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth. She it is who accepts no +person, and exempts none from the severity of her stroke.</q> A. J. Balfour, Foundations +of Belief, 326—<q>Even the poet has not dared to represent Jupiter torturing +Prometheus without the dim figure of Avenging Fate waiting silently in the background.... +Evolution working out a nobler and nobler justice is proof that God is +just. Here is <q>preferential action</q>.</q> S. S. Times, June 9, 1900—<q>The natural man is +born with a wrong personal astronomy. Man should give up the conceit of being the +centre of all things. He should accept the Copernican theory, and content himself +with a place on the edge of things—the place he has always really had. We all laugh +at John Jasper and his thesis that <q>the sun do move.</q> The Copernican theory is leaking +down into human relations, as appears from the current phrase: <q>There are +others</q>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Neither justice nor righteousness, therefore, is a matter of arbitrary +will. They are revelations of the inmost nature of God, the one in the +form of moral requirement, the other in the form of judicial sanction. As +<pb n='293'/><anchor id='Pg293'/> +God cannot but demand of his creatures that they be like him in moral +character, so he cannot but enforce the law which he imposes upon them. +Justice just as much binds God to punish as it binds the sinner to be +punished. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +All arbitrariness is excluded here. God is what he is—infinite purity. He cannot +change. If creatures are to attain the end of their being, they must be like God in +moral purity. Justice is nothing but the recognition and enforcement of this natural +necessity. Law is only the transcript of God's nature. Justice does not make law,—it +only reveals law. Penalty is only the reaction of God's holiness against that which is +its opposite. Since righteousness and justice are only legislative and retributive holiness, +God can cease to demand purity and to punish sin only when he ceases to be holy, +that is, only when he ceases to be God. <q>Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Simon, Reconciliation, 141—<q>To claim the performance of duty is as truly obligatory +as it is obligatory to perform the duty which is prescribed.</q> E. H. Johnson, Systematic +Theology, 84—<q>Benevolence intends what is well for the creature; justice insists +on what is fit. But the well-for-us and the fit-for-us precisely coincide. The only thing +that is well for us is our normal employment and development; but to provide for +this is precisely what is fitting and therefore due to us. In the divine nature the distinction +between justice and benevolence is one of form.</q> We criticize this utterance +as not sufficiently taking into account the nature of the right. The right is not +merely the fit. Fitness is only general adaptation which may have in it no ethical element, +whereas right is solely and exclusively ethical. The right therefore regulates +the fit and constitutes its standard. The well-for-us is to be determined by the right-for-us, +but not <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi>. George W. Northrup: <q>God is not bound to bestow the same +endowments upon creatures, nor to keep all in a state of holiness forever, nor to +redeem the fallen, nor to secure the greatest happiness of the universe. But he is +bound to purpose and to do what his absolute holiness requires. He has no attribute, +no will, no sovereignty, above this law of his being. He cannot lie, he cannot deny +himself, he cannot look upon sin with complacency, he cannot acquit the guilty without +an atonement.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Neither justice nor righteousness bestows rewards. This follows +from the fact that obedience is due to God, instead of being optional or a +gratuity. No creature can claim anything for his obedience. If God +rewards, he rewards in virtue of his goodness and faithfulness, not in virtue +of his justice or his righteousness. What the creature cannot claim, however, +Christ <emph>can</emph> claim, and the rewards which are goodness to the creature +are righteousness to Christ. God rewards Christ's work <emph>for</emph> us and <emph>in</emph> us. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Bruch, Eigenschaftslehre, 280-282, and John Austin, Province of Jurisprudence, 1:88-93, +220-223, both deny, and rightly deny, that justice bestows rewards. Justice simply +punishes infractions of law. In <emph>Mat. 25:34—<q>inherit the kingdom</q></emph>—inheritance implies no +merit; <emph>46</emph>—the wicked are adjudged to eternal punishment; the righteous, not to eternal +reward, but to eternal life. <emph>Luke 17:7-10—<q>when ye shall have done all the things that are commanded +you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.</q></emph> <emph>Rom. 6:23</emph>—punishment +is the <q><emph>wages of sin</emph></q>: but salvation is <q><emph>the gift of God</emph></q>; <emph>2:6</emph>—God rewards, not +<emph>on account of</emph> man's work but <q><emph>according to his works</emph>.</q> Reward is thus seen to be in Scripture +a matter of grace to the creature; only to the Christ who works for us in atonement, +and in us in regeneration and sanctification, is reward a matter of debt (see also +<emph>John 6:27</emph> and <emph>2 John 8</emph>). Martineau, Types, 2:86, 244, 249—<q>Merit is toward man; virtue +toward God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +All mere service is unprofitable, because it furnishes only an equivalent to duty, and +there is no margin. Works of supererogation are impossible, because our all is due to +God. He would have us rise into the region of friendship, realize that he has been +treating us not as Master but as Father, enter into a relation of uncalculating love. +With this proviso that rewards are matters of grace, not of debt, we may assent to the +maxim of Solon: <q>A republic walks upon two feet—just punishment for the unworthy +and due reward for the worthy.</q> George Harris, Moral Evolution, 139—<q>Love +<pb n='294'/><anchor id='Pg294'/> +seeks righteousness, and is satisfied with nothing other than that.</q> But when Harris +adopts the words of the poet: <q>The very wrath from pity grew, From love of men the +hate of wrong,</q> he seems to us virtually to deny that God hates evil for any other +reason than because of its utilitarian disadvantages, and to imply that good has no +independent existence in his nature. Bowne, Ethics, 171—<q>Merit is desert of reward, +or better, desert of moral approval.</q> Tennyson: <q>For merit lives from man to man, +And not from man, O Lord, to thee.</q> Baxter: <q><hi rend='italic'>Desert</hi> is written over the gate of hell; +but over the gate of heaven only, <hi rend='italic'>The Gift of God</hi>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Justice in God, as the revelation of his holiness, is devoid of all passion +or caprice. There is in God no selfish anger. The penalties he +inflicts upon transgression are not vindictive but vindicative. They express +the revulsion of God's nature from moral evil, the judicial indignation of +purity against impurity, the self-assertion of infinite holiness against its +antagonist and would-be destroyer. But because its decisions are calm, +they are irreversible. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Anger, within certain limits, is a duty of man. <emph>Ps. 97:10—<q>ye that love Jehovah, hate evil</q></emph>; +<emph>Eph. 4:28—<q>Be ye angry, and sin not.</q></emph> The calm indignation of the judge, who pronounces +sentence with tears, is the true image of the holy anger of God against sin. Weber, +Zorn Gottes, 28, makes wrath only the jealousy of love. It is more truly the jealousy +of holiness. Prof. W. A. Stevens, Com. on <emph>1 Thess. 2:10</emph>—<q><emph>Holily</emph> and <emph>righteously</emph> are terms +that describe the same conduct in two aspects; the former, as conformed to God's character +in itself; the latter, as conformed to his law; both are positive.</q> Lillie, on <emph>2 +Thess. 1:6</emph>—<q>Judgment is <q><emph>a righteous thing with God</emph>.</q> Divine justice requires it for its own +satisfaction.</q> See Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:175-178, 365-385; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1:180, 181. +</p> + +<p> +Of Gaston de Foix, the old chronicler admirably wrote: <q>He loved what ought to +be loved, and hated what ought to be hated, and never had miscreant with him.</q> +Compare <emph>Ps. 101:5, 6—<q>Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will I not suffer. Mine eyes shall be upon +the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me.</q></emph> Even Horace Bushnell spoke of the <q>wrath-principle</q> +in God. <emph>1 K. 11:9—<q>And Jehovah was angry with Solomon</q></emph> because of his polygamy. +Jesus' anger was no less noble than his love. The love of the right involved hatred of +the wrong. Those may hate who hate evil for its hatefulness and for the sake of God. +Hate sin in yourself first, and then you may hate it in itself and in the world. Be +angry only in Christ and with the wrath of God. W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 264—<q>But +we must purge ourselves of self-regard, Or we are sinful in abhorring sin.</q> +Instance Judge Harris's pity, as he sentenced the murderer; see A. H. Strong, Philosophy +and Religion, 192, 193. +</p> + +<p> +Horace's <q>Ira furor brevis est</q>—<q>Anger is a temporary madness</q>—is true only of +selfish and sinful anger. Hence the man who is angry is popularly called <q>mad.</q> +But anger, though apt to become sinful, is not necessarily so. Just anger is neither +madness, nor is it brief. Instance the judicial anger of the church of Corinth in inflicting +excommunication: <emph>2 Cor. 7:11—<q>what indignation, yea what fear, yea what longing, yea what zeal, +yea what avenging!</q></emph> The only revenge permissible to the Christian church is that in which +it pursues and exterminates sin. To be incapable of moral indignation against wrong +is to lack real love for the right. Dr. Arnold of Rugby was never sure of a boy who +only loved good; till the boy also began to hate evil, Dr. Arnold did not feel that he +was safe. Herbert Spencer said that good nature with Americans became a crime. +Lecky, Democracy and Liberty: <q>There is one thing worse than corruption, and that +is acquiescence in corruption.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 139—<q>Xenophon intends to say a very commendable +thing of Cyrus the Younger, when he writes of him that no one had done more +good to his friends or more harm to his enemies.</q> Luther said to a monkish antagonist: +<q>I will break in pieces your heart of brass and pulverize your iron brains.</q> Shedd, +Dogmatic Theology, 1:175-178—<q>Human character is worthless in proportion as +abhorrence of sin is lacking in it. It is related of Charles II that <q>he felt no gratitude +for benefits, and no resentment for wrongs; he did not love anyone, and he did not hate +anyone.</q> He was indifferent toward right and wrong, and the only feeling he had was +contempt.</q> But see the death-bed scene of the <q>merry monarch,</q> as portrayed in Bp. +Burnet, Evelyn's Memoirs, or the Life of Bp. Ken. Truly <emph><q>The end of mirth is heaviness</q> (Prov. 14:13)</emph>. +</p> + +<pb n='295'/><anchor id='Pg295'/> + +<p> +Stout, Manual of Psychology, 22—<q>Charles Lamb tells us that his friend George +Dyer could never be brought to say anything in condemnation of the most atrocious +crimes, except that the criminal must have been very eccentric.</q> Professor Seeley: +<q>No heart is pure that is not passionate.</q> D. W. Simon, Redemption of Man, 249, 250, +says that God's resentment <q>is a resentment of an essentially altruistic character.</q> +If this means that it is perfectly consistent with love for the sinner, we can accept +the statement; if it means that love is the only source of the resentment, we regard +the statement as a misinterpretation of God's justice, which is but the manifestation of +his holiness and is not a mere expression of his love. See a similar statement of Lidgett, +Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, 251—<q>Because God is love, his love coëxists +with his wrath against sinners, is the very life of that wrath, and is so persistent that +it uses wrath as its instrument, while at the same time it seeks and supplies a propitiation.</q> +This statement ignores the fact that punishment is never in Scripture regarded +as an expression of God's love, but always of God's holiness. When we say that we love +God, let us make sure that it is the true God, the God of holiness, that we love, for only +this love will make us like him. +</p> + +<p> +The moral indignation of a whole universe of holy beings against moral evil, added to +the agonizing self-condemnations of awakened conscience in all the unholy, is only a +faint and small reflection of the awful revulsion of God's infinite justice from the +impurity and selfishness of his creatures, and of the intense, organic, necessary, and +eternal reaction of his moral being in self-vindication and the punishment of sin; see +<emph>Jer. 44:4—<q>Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!</q></emph> <emph>Num. 32:23—<q>be sure your sin will find you out</q></emph>; +<emph>Heb. 10:30, 31—<q>For we know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord +shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.</q></emph> On justice as an attribute +of a moral governor, see N. W. Taylor, Moral Government, 2:253-293; Owen, Dissertation +on Divine Justice, in Works, 10:483-624. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>VII. Rank and Relations of the several Attributes.</head> + +<p> +The attributes have relations to each other. Like intellect, affection and +will in man, no one of them is to be conceived of as exercised separately +from the rest. Each of the attributes is qualified by all the others. God's +love is immutable, wise, holy. Infinity belongs to God's knowledge, power, +justice. Yet this is not to say that one attribute is of as high rank as +another. The moral attributes of truth, love, holiness, are worthy of +higher reverence from men, and they are more jealously guarded by God, +than the natural attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. +And yet even among the moral attributes one stands as supreme. +Of this and of its supremacy we now proceed to speak. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Water is not water unless composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen cannot be +resolved into hydrogen, nor hydrogen into oxygen. Oxygen has its own character, +though only in combination with hydrogen does it appear in water. Will in man +never acts without intellect and sensibility, yet will, more than intellect or sensibility, +is the manifestation of the man. So when God acts, he manifests not one attribute +alone, but his total moral excellence. Yet holiness, as an attribute of God, has rights +peculiar to itself; it determines the attitude of the affections; it more than any other +faculty constitutes God's moral being. +</p> + +<p> +Clarke, Christian Theology, 83,92—<q>God would not be holy if he were not love, and +could not be love if he were not holy. Love is an element in holiness. If this were +lacking, there would be no perfect character as principle of his own action or as standard +for us. On the other hand only the perfect being can be love. God must be free from +all taint of selfishness in order to be love. Holiness requires God to act as love, for +holiness is God's self-consistency. Love is the desire to impart holiness. Holiness +makes God's character the standard for his creatures; but love, desiring to impart the +best good, does the same. All work of love is work of holiness, and all work of holiness +is work of love. Conflict of attributes is impossible, because holiness always +includes love, and love always expresses holiness. They never need reconciliation with +each other.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The general correctness of the foregoing statement is impaired by the vagueness of +its conception of holiness. The Scriptures do not regard holiness as including love, or +make all the acts of holiness to be acts of love. Self-affirmation does not include self-impartation, +<pb n='296'/><anchor id='Pg296'/> +and sin necessitates an exercise of holiness which is not also an exercise +of love. But for the Cross, and God's suffering for sin of which the Cross is the expression, +there would be conflict between holiness and love. The wisdom of God is most +shown, not in reconciling man and God, but in reconciling the holy God with the +loving God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Holiness the fundamental attribute in God.</head> + +<p> +That holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, is evident: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) From Scripture,—in which God's holiness is not only most constantly +and powerfully impressed upon the attention of man, but is declared +to be the chief subject of rejoicing and adoration in heaven. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is God's attribute of holiness that first and most prominently presents itself to the +mind of the sinner, and conscience only follows the method of Scripture: <emph>1 Pet. 1:16—<q>Ye +shall be holy; for I am holy</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 12:14—<q>the sanctification without which no man shall see the lord</q>;</emph> <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> +<emph>Luke 5:8—<q>Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.</q></emph> Yet this constant insistence upon holiness +cannot be due simply to man's present state of sin, for in heaven, where there is no +sin, there is the same reiteration: <emph>Is. 6:3—<q>Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 4:8—<q>Holy, +holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty.</q></emph> Of no other attribute is it said that God's throne +rests upon it: <emph>Ps. 97:2—<q>Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne</q></emph>; <emph>99:4, 5, 9—<q>The king's +strength also loveth justice.... Exalt ye Jehovah our God.... holy is he.</q></emph> We would substitute the +word holiness for the word love in the statement of Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, +45—<q>We assume that love is lord in the divine will, not that the will of God is sovereign +over his love. God's omnipotence, as Dorner would say, exists for his love.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) From our own moral constitution,—in which conscience asserts its +supremacy over every other impulse and affection of our nature. As we +may be kind, but must be righteous, so God, in whose image we are made, +may be merciful, but must be holy. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Bishop Butler's Sermons upon Human Nature, Bohn's ed., 385-414, showing <q>the +supremacy of conscience in the moral constitution of man.</q> We must be just, before +we are generous. So with God, justice must be done always; mercy is optional with +him. He was not under obligation to provide a redemption for sinners: <emph>2 Pet. 2:4—<q>God +spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell.</q></emph> Salvation is a matter of grace, not of +debt. Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 277-298—<q>The quality of justice is necessary exaction; +but <q>the quality of mercy is not (con)strained</q></q> [<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Denham: <q>His mirth is +forced and strained</q>]. God can apply the salvation, after he has wrought it out, to +whomsoever he will: <emph>Rom. 9:18—<q>he hath mercy on whom he will.</q></emph> Young, Night-Thoughts, +4:233—<q>A God all mercy is a God unjust.</q> Emerson: <q>Your goodness must have +some edge to it; else it is none.</q> Martineau, Study, 2:100—<q>No one can be just +without subordinating Pity to the sense of Right.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We may learn of God's holiness <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a priori</foreign>. Even the heathen could say <q>Fiat justitia, +ruat cœlum,</q> or <q>pereat mundus.</q> But, for our knowledge of God's mercy, we are +dependent upon special revelation. Mercy, like omnipotence, may exist in God without +being exercised. Mercy is not grace but debt, if God owes the exercise of it either +to the sinner or to himself; <hi rend='italic'>versus</hi> G. B. Stevens, in New Eng., 1888:421-443. <q>But justice +is an attribute which not only <emph>exists</emph> of necessity, but must be <emph>exercised</emph> of necessity; +because not to exercise it would be injustice</q>; see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:218, 219, 389, +390; 2:402, and Sermons to Nat. Man, 366. If it be said that, by parity of reasoning, for +God not to exercise mercy is to show himself unmerciful,—we reply that this is not +true so long as higher interests require that exercise to be withheld. I am not unmerciful +when I refuse to give the poor the money needed to pay an honest debt; nor is the +Governor unmerciful when he refuses to pardon the condemned and unrepentant +criminal. Mercy has its conditions, as we proceed to show, and it does not cease to <emph>be</emph> +when these conditions do not permit it to <emph>be exercised</emph>. Not so with justice: justice +must always be exercised; when it ceases to <emph>be exercised</emph>, it also ceases to <emph>be</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +The story of the prodigal shows a love that ever reaches out after the son in the far +country, but which is ever conditioned by the father's holiness and restrained from +acting until the son has voluntarily forsaken his riotous living. A just father may +banish a corrupt son from the household, yet may love him so tenderly that his banishment +<pb n='297'/><anchor id='Pg297'/> +causes exquisite pain. E. G. Robinson: <q>God, Christ and the Holy Spirit have a +conscience, that is, they distinguish between right and wrong.</q> E. H. Johnson, Syst. +Theology, 85, 86—<q>Holiness is primary as respects benevolence; for (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Holiness is +itself moral excellence, while the moral excellence of benevolence can be explained. +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Holiness is an attribute of being, while benevolence is an attribute of action; but +action presupposes and is controlled by being. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Benevolence must take counsel of +holiness, since for a being to desire aught contrary to holiness would be to wish him harm, +while that which holiness leads God to seek, benevolence finds best for the creature. +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The Mosaic dispensation elaborately symbolized, and the Christian dispensation +makes provision to meet, the requirements of holiness as supreme; <emph>James 3:17</emph>—<q><emph>First pure, +then</emph> [by consequence] <emph>peaceable</emph>.</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +We are <q><emph>to do justly</emph>,</q> as well as <emph><q>to love kindness, and to walk humbly with</q></emph> our God (<emph>Micah 6:8</emph>). +Dr. Samuel Johnson: <q>It is surprising to find how much more kindness than justice +society contains.</q> There is a sinful mercy. A School Commissioner finds it terrible +work to listen to the pleas of incompetent teachers begging that they may not be dismissed, +and he can nerve himself for it only by remembering the children whose education +may be affected by his refusal to do justice. Love and pity are not the whole of +Christian duty, nor are they the ruling attributes of God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) From the actual dealings of God,—in which holiness conditions +and limits the exercise of other attributes. Thus, for example, in Christ's +redeeming work, though love makes the atonement, it is violated holiness +that requires it; and in the eternal punishment of the wicked, the demand +of holiness for self-vindication overbears the pleading of love for the sufferers. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Love cannot be the fundamental attribute of God, because love always requires a norm +or standard, and this norm or standard is found only in holiness; <emph>Phil. 1:9—<q>And this I +pray, that your love may abound yet more in knowledge and all discernment</q></emph>; see A. H. Strong, Christ in +Creation, 388-405. That which conditions all is highest of all. Holiness shows itself higher +than love, in that it conditions love. Hence God's mercy does not consist in outraging +his own law of holiness, but in enduring the penal affliction by which that law of holiness +is satisfied. Conscience in man is but the reflex of holiness in God. Conscience +demands either retribution or atonement. This demand Christ meets by his substituted +suffering. His sacrifice assuages the thirst of conscience in man, as well as the +demand of holiness in God: <emph>John 6:55—<q>For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.</q></emph> +See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 280, 291, 292; Dogmatic Theology, 1:377, 378—<q>The +sovereignty and freedom of God in respect to justice relates not to the <emph>abolition</emph>, nor to +the <emph>relaxation</emph>, but to the <emph>substitution</emph>, of punishment. It does not consist in any power +to violate or waive legal claims. The exercise of the other attributes of God is regulated +and conditioned by that of justice.... Where then is the mercy of God, in case +justice is strictly satisfied by a vicarious person? There is mercy in <emph>permitting</emph> another +person to do for the sinner what the sinner is bound to do for himself; and greater +mercy in <emph>providing</emph> that person; and still greater mercy in <emph>becoming</emph> that person.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Enthusiasm, like fire, must not only burn, but must be controlled. Man invented +chimneys to keep in the heat but to let out the smoke. We need the walls of discretion +and self-control to guide the flaming of our love. The holiness of God is the regulating +principle of his nature. The ocean of his mercy is bounded by the shores of his justice. +Even if holiness be God's self-love, in the sense of God's self-respect or self-preservation, +still this self-love must condition love to creatures. Only as God maintains himself +in his holiness, can he have anything of worth to give; love indeed is nothing but +the self-communication of holiness. And if we say, with J. M. Whiton, that self-affirmation +in a universe in which God is immanent is itself a form of self-impartation, still +this form of self-impartation must condition and limit that other form of self-impartation +which we call love to creatures. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137-155, 346-353; +Patton, art. on Retribution and the Divine Goodness, in Princeton Rev., +Jan. 1878:8-16; Owen, Dissertation on the Divine Justice, in Works, 10: 483-624. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) From God's eternal purpose of salvation,—in which justice and +mercy are reconciled only through the foreseen and predetermined sacrifice +of Christ. The declaration that Christ is <q>the Lamb ... slain from +<pb n='298'/><anchor id='Pg298'/> +the foundation of the world</q> implies the existence of a principle in the +divine nature which requires satisfaction, before God can enter upon the +work of redemption. That principle can be none other than holiness. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Since both mercy and justice are exercised toward sinners of the human race, the +otherwise inevitable antagonism between them is removed only by the atoning death +of the God-man. Their opposing claims do not impair the divine blessedness, because +the reconciliation exists in the eternal counsels of God. This is intimated in <emph>Rev. 13:8—<q>the +Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world.</q></emph> This same reconciliation is alluded +to in <emph>Ps. 85:10—<q>Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other</q></emph>; and in +<emph>Rom. 3:26—<q>that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.</q></emph> The atonement, +then, if man was to be saved, was necessary, not primarily on man's account, but on +God's account. Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 279—The sacrifice of Christ was an +<q>atonement <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ab intra</foreign>, a self-oblation on the part of Deity himself, by which to satisfy +those immanent and eternal imperatives of the divine nature which without it must +find their satisfaction in the punishment of the transgressor, or else be outraged.</q> +Thus God's word of redemption, as well as his word of creation, is forever <emph><q>settled in +heaven</q> (Ps. 119:89)</emph>. Its execution on the cross was <emph><q>according to the pattern</q></emph> on high. The +Mosaic sacrifice prefigured the sacrifice of Christ; but the sacrifice of Christ was but +the temporal disclosure of an eternal fact in the nature of God. See Kreibig, Versöhnung, +155, 156. +</p> + +<p> +God requires satisfaction because he is holiness, but he makes satisfaction because he +is love. The Judge himself, with all his hatred of transgression, still loves the transgressor, +and comes down from the bench to take the criminal's place and bear his penalty. +But this is an eternal provision and an eternal sacrifice. <emph>Heb. 9:14—<q>the blood of Christ, +who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God.</q></emph> Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, +215, 216—<q>Christ's sacrifice was offered through the Spirit. It was not wrung from a +reluctant soul through obedience to outward law; it came from the inner heart, from +the impulse of undying love. It was a completed offering before Calvary began; it +was seen by the Father before it was seen by the world. It was finished in the Spirit, +ere it began in the flesh, finished in the hour when Christ exclaimed: <emph><q>not as I will, but as +thou wilt</q> (Mat. 26:39).</emph></q> +</p> + +<p> +Lang, Homer, 506—<q>Apollo is the bringer of pestilence and the averter of pestilence, +in accordance with the well-known rule that the two opposite attributes should +be combined in the same deity.</q> Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: <q>Neither angel, +man nor world, could stand or can stand one moment in God's sight without beholding +the same in the face of a Mediator; and therefore before him, with whom all things +are present, the Lamb of God was slain before all worlds; without which eternal counsel +of his, it was impossible for him to have descended to any work of creation.</q> Orr, +Christian View of God and the World, 819—<q>Creation is built on redemption lines</q>—which +is to say that incarnation and atonement were included in God's original design +of the world. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. The holiness of God the ground of moral obligation.</head> + +<p> +A. Erroneous Views. The ground of moral obligation is not +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In power,—whether of civil law (Hobbes, Gassendi), or of divine +will (Occam, Descartes). We are not bound to obey either of these, +except upon the ground that they are right. This theory assumes that +nothing is good or right in itself, and that morality is mere prudence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Civil law</hi>: See Hobbes, Leviathan, part i, chap. 6 and 13; part ii, chap. 30; Gassendi, +Opera, 6:120. Upon this view, might makes right; the laws of Nero are always binding; +a man may break his promise when civil law permits; there is no obligation to +obey a father, a civil governor, or God himself, when once it is certain that the disobedience +will be hidden, or when the offender is willing to incur the punishment. Martineau, +Seat of Authority, 67—<q>Mere magnitude of scale carries no moral quality; nor +could a whole population of devils by unanimous ballot confer righteousness upon +their will, or make it binding upon a single Abdiel.</q> Robert Browning, Christmas Eve, +xvii—<q>Justice, good, and truth were still Divine if, by some demon's will, Hatred and +wrong had been proclaimed Law through the world, and right misnamed.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='299'/><anchor id='Pg299'/> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Divine will</hi>: See Occam, lib. 2, quæs. 19 (quoted in Porter, Moral Science, 125); Descartes +(referred to in Hickok, Moral Science, 27, 28); Martineau, Types, 148—<q>Descartes +held that the will of God is not the revealer but the inventor of moral distinctions. +God could have made Euclid a farrago of lies, and Satan a model of moral perfection.</q> +Upon this view, right and wrong are variable quantities. Duns Scotus held that God's +will makes not only truth but right. God can make lying to be virtuous and purity to +be wrong. If Satan were God, we should be bound to obey him. God is essentially +indifferent to right and wrong, good and evil. We reply that behind the divine will is +the divine nature, and that in the moral perfection of that nature lies the only ground +of moral obligation. God pours forth his love and exerts his power in accordance with +some determining principle in his own nature. That principle is not happiness. Finney, +Syst. Theology, 936, 937—<q>Could God's command make it obligatory upon us to will +evil to him? If not, then his will is not the ground of moral obligation. The thing +that is most valuable, namely, the highest good of God and of the universe must be +both the end and the ground. It is the divine reason and not the divine will that perceives +and affirms the law of conduct. The divine will publishes, but does not originate, +the rule. God's will could not make vice to be virtuous.</q> +</p> + +<p> +As between power or utility on the one hand, and right on the other hand, we must +regard right as the more fundamental. We do not, however, as will be seen further on, +place the ground of moral obligation even in right, considered as an abstract principle; +but place it rather in the moral excellence of him who is the personal Right and therefore +the source of right. Character obliges, and the master often bows in his heart to +the servant, when this latter is the nobler man. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Nor in utility,—whether our own happiness or advantage present +or eternal (Paley), for supreme regard for our own interest is not virtuous; +or the greatest happiness or advantage to being in general (Edwards), +for we judge conduct to be useful because it is right, not right because it is +useful. This theory would compel us to believe that in eternity past God +was holy only because of the good he got from it,—that is, there was no +such thing as holiness in itself, and no such thing as moral character in God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Our own happiness</hi>: Paley, Mor. and Pol. Philos., book i, chap. vii—<q>Virtue is the +doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting +happiness.</q> This unites (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>). John Stuart Mill and Dr. N. W. Taylor held +that our own happiness is the supreme end. These writers indeed regard the highest +happiness as attained only by living for others (Mill's altruism), but they can assign +no reason why one who knows no other happiness than the pleasures of sense should +not adopt the maxim of Epicurus, who, according to Lucretius, taught that <q>ducit +quemque voluptas.</q> This theory renders virtue impossible; for a virtue which is mere +regard to our own interest is not virtue but prudence. <q>We have a sense of right and +wrong independently of all considerations of happiness or its loss.</q> James Mill held +that the utility is not the criterion of the morality but itself constitutes the morality. +G. B. Foster well replies that virtue is not mere egoistic sagacity, and the moral act is +not simply a clever business enterprise. All languages distinguish between virtue and +prudence. To say that the virtues are great utilities is to confound the effect with the +cause. Carlyle says that a man can do without happiness. Browning, Red Cotton +Nightcap Country: <q>Thick heads ought to recognize The devil, that old stager, at his +trick Of general utility, who leads Downward perhaps, but fiddles all the way.</q> This +is the morality of Mother Goose: <q>He put in his thumb, And pulled out a plum, And +said, <q>What a good boy am I!</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 160—<q>Utility has nothing ultimate +in itself, and therefore can furnish no ground of obligation. Utility is mere fitness +of one thing to minister to something else.</q> To say that things are right because +they are useful, is like saying that things are beautiful because they are pleasing. +Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 2:170, 511, 556—<q>The moment the appetites pass +into the self-conscious state, and become ends instead of impulses, they draw to themselves +terms of censure.... So intellectual conscientiousness, or strict submission of +the mind to evidence, has its inspiration in pure love of truth, and would not survive an +hour if entrusted to the keeping either of providence or of social affection.... +Instincts, which provide for they know not what, are proof that <emph>want</emph> is the original +<pb n='300'/><anchor id='Pg300'/> +impulse to action, instead of pleasure being the end.</q> On the happiness theory, appeals +to self-interest on behalf of religion ought to be effective,—as a matter of fact few are +moved by them. +</p> + +<p> +Dewey, Psychology, 300, 362—<q>Emotion turned inward eats up itself. Live on feelings +rather than on the things to which feelings belong, and you defeat your own end, +exhaust your power of feeling, commit emotional suicide. Hence arise cynicism, the +<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>nil admirari</foreign> spirit, restless searching for the latest sensation. The only remedy is to get +outside of self, to devote self to some worthy object, not for feeling's sake but for the +sake of the object.... We do not desire an object because it gives us pleasure, but it +gives us pleasure because it satisfies the impulse which, in connection with the idea of +the object, constitutes the desire.... Pleasure is the accompaniment of the activity or +development of the <emph>self</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 150—<q>It is right to aim at happiness. Happiness is +an end. Utilitarianism errs in making happiness the only and the highest end. It +exalts a state of feeling into the supremely desirable thing. Intuitionalism gives the +same place to a state of will. The truth includes both. The true end is the highest +development of being, self and others, the realization of the divine idea, God in man.</q> +Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 96—<q>The standard of appeal is not the actual happiness +of the actual man but the normal happiness of the normal man.... Happiness must +have a law. But then also the law must lead to happiness.... The true ethical aim +is to realize the good. But then the contents of this good have to be determined in +accordance with an inborn ideal of human worth and dignity.... Not all good, but +the true good, not the things which please, but the things which should please, are to +be the aim of action.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Bixby, Crisis of Morals, 223—<q>The Utilitarian is really asking about the wisest +method of embodying the ideal. He belongs to that second stage in which the moral +artist considers through what material and in what form and color he may best realize +his thought. What the ideal is, and why it is the highest, he does not tell us. Morality +begins, not in feeling, but in reason. And reason is impersonal. It discerns the moral +equality of personalities.</q> Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 20—Job speaks out his +character like one of Robert Browning's heroes. He teaches that <q>there is a service of +God which is not work for reward: it is a heart-loyalty, a hunger after God's presence, +which survives loss and chastisement; which in spite of contradictory seeming cleaves +to what is godlike as the needle seeks the pole; and which reaches up out of the darkness +and hardness of this life into the light and love beyond.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Greatest good of being</hi>: Not only Edwards, but Priestley, Bentham, Dwight, Finney, +Hopkins, Fairchild, hold this view. See Edwards, Works, 2:261-304—<q>Virtue is benevolence +toward being in general</q>; Dwight, Theology, 3:150-162—<q>Utility the foundation +of Virtue</q>; Hopkins, Law of Love, 7-28; Fairchild, Moral Philosophy; Finney, +Syst. Theol., 42-135. This theory regards good as a mere state of the sensibility, instead +of consisting in purity of being. It forgets that in eternity past <q>love for being in +general</q> = simply God's self-love, or God's regard for his own happiness. This implies +that God is holy only for a purpose; he is bound to be unholy, if greater good would +result; that is, holiness has no independent existence in his nature. We grant that a +thing is often known to be right by the fact that it is useful; but this is very different +from saying that its usefulness makes it right. <q>Utility is only the setting of the diamond, +which <emph>marks</emph>, but does not <emph>make</emph>, its value.</q> <q>If utility be a criterion of rectitude, +it is only because it is a revelation of the divine nature.</q> See British Quarterly, +July, 1877, on Matthew Arnold and Bishop Butler. Bp. Butler, Nature of Virtue, in +Works, Bohn's ed., 334—<q>Benevolence is the true self-love.</q> Love and holiness are +obligatory in themselves, and not because they promote the general good. Cicero well +said that they who confounded the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>honestum</foreign> with the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>utile</foreign> deserved to be banished +from society. See criticism on Porter's Moral Science, in Lutheran Quarterly, Apr. +1885:325-331; also F. L. Patton, on Metaphysics of Oughtness, in Presb. Rev., 1886:127-150. +</p> + +<p> +Encyc. Britannica, 7:690, on Jonathan Edwards—<q>Being in general, being without +any qualities, is too abstract a thing to be the primary cause of love. The feeling +which Edwards refers to is not love, but awe or reverence, and moreover necessarily +a blind awe. Properly stated therefore, true virtue, according to Edwards, would consist +in a blind awe of being in general,—only this would be inconsistent with his definition +of virtue as existing in God. In reality, as he makes virtue merely the second +object of love, his theory becomes identical with that utilitarian theory with which the +names of Hume, Bentham and Mill are associated.</q> Hodge, Essays, 275—<q>If obligation +is due primarily to being in general, then there is no more virtue in loving God—willing +<pb n='301'/><anchor id='Pg301'/> +his good—than there is in loving Satan. But love to Christ differs in its nature +from benevolence toward the devil.</q> Plainly virtue consists, not in love for mere +being, but in love for good being, or in other words, in love for the holy God. Not the +greatest good of being, but the holiness of God, is the ground of moral obligation. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. E. A. Park interprets the Edwardian theory as holding that virtue is love to all +beings according to their value, love of the greater therefore more than the less, <q>love +to particular beings in a proportion compounded of the degree of being and the degree +of virtue or benevolence to being which they have.</q> Love is choice. Happiness, says +Park, is not the sole good, much less the happiness of creatures. The <emph>greatest</emph> good is +holiness, though the <emph>last</emph> good aimed at is happiness. Holiness is disinterested love—free +choice of the general above the private good. But we reply that this gives us no +reason or standard for virtue. It does not tell us what is good nor why we should +choose it. Martineau, Types, 2:70, 77, 471, 484—<q>Why should I promote the general +well-being? Why should I sacrifice myself for others? Only because this is godlike. +It Would never have been prudent to do right, had it not been something infinitely +more.... It is not fitness that makes an act moral, but it is its morality that makes +it fit.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Herbert Spencer must be classed as a utilitarian. He says that justice requires that +<q>every man be free to do as he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of +every other man.</q> But, since this would permit injury to another by one willing to +submit to injury in return, Mr. Spencer limits the freedom to <q>such actions as subserve +life.</q> This is practically equivalent to saying that the greatest sum of happiness is the +ultimate end. On Jonathan Edwards, see Robert Hall, Works, 1:43 sq.; Alexander, +Moral Science, 194-198; Bib. Repertory (Princeton Review), 25:22; Bib. Sacra, 9:176, +197; 10:403, 705. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Nor in the nature of things (Price),—whether by this we mean their +fitness (Clarke), truth (Wollaston), order (Jouffroy), relations (Wayland), +worthiness (Hickok), sympathy (Adam Smith), or abstract right (Haven +and Alexander); for this nature of things is not ultimate, but has its ground +in the nature of God. We are bound to worship the highest; if anything +exists beyond and above God, we are bound to worship that,—that indeed +is God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Wayland, Moral Science, 33-48; Hickok, Moral Science, 27-34; Haven, Moral Philosophy, +27-50; Alexander, Moral Science, 159-198. In opposition to all the forms of this +theory, we urge that nothing exists independently of or above God. <q>If the ground of +morals exist independently of God, either it has ultimately no authority, or it usurps +the throne of the Almighty. Any rational being who kept the law would be perfect +without God, and the moral centre of all intelligences would be outside of God</q> +(Talbot). God is not a Jupiter controlled by Fate. He is subject to no law but the law +of his own nature. <foreign lang='fr' rend='italic'>Noblesse oblige</foreign>,—character rules,—purity is the highest. And +therefore to holiness all creatures, voluntarily or involuntarily, are constrained to +bow. Hopkins, Law of Love, 77—<q>Right and wrong have nothing to do with things, +but only with actions; nothing to do with any nature of things existing necessarily, +but only with the nature of persons.</q> Another has said: <q>The idea of right cannot +be original, since right means conformity to some standard or rule.</q> This standard or +rule is not an abstraction, but an existing being—the infinitely perfect God. +</p> + +<p> +Faber: <q>For right is right, since God is God; And right the day must win; To doubt +would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.</q> Tennyson: <q>And because right is right, +to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.</q> Right is right, and I +should will the right, not because God <emph>wills</emph> it, but because God <emph>is</emph> it. E. G. Robinson, +Principles and Practice of Morality, 178-180—<q>Utility and relations simply reveal the +constitution of things and so represent God. Moral law was not made for purposes of +utility, nor do relations constitute the reason for obligation. They only show what the +nature of God is who made the universe and revealed himself in it. In his nature is +found the <emph>reason</emph> for morality.</q> S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891—<q>Only that is level which +conforms to the curvature of the earth's surface. A straight line tangent to the +earth's curve would at its ends be much further from the earth's centre than at its +middle. Now equity means levelness. The standard of equity is not an impersonal +thing, a 'nature of things' outside of God. Equity or righteousness is no more to be +conceived independently of the divine centre of the moral world than is levelness comprehensible +apart from the earth's centre.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='302'/><anchor id='Pg302'/> + +<p> +Since God finds the rule and limitation of his action solely in his own being, and his +love is conditioned by his holiness, we must differ from such views as that of Moxom: +<q>Whether we define God's nature as perfect holiness or perfect love is immaterial, +since his nature is manifested only through his action, that is, through his relation to +other beings. Most of our reasoning on the divine standard of righteousness, or the +ultimate ground of moral obligation, is reasoning in a circle, since we must always go +back to God for the principle of his action; which principle we can know only +by means of his action. God, the perfectly righteous Being, is the ideal standard of +human righteousness. Righteousness in man therefore is conformity to the nature of +God. God, in agreement with his perfect nature, always wills the perfectly good +toward man. His righteousness is an expression of his love; his love is a manifestation +of his righteousness.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So Newman Smyth: <q>Righteousness is the eternal genuineness of the divine love. It +is not therefore an independent excellence, to be contrasted with, or even put in opposition +to, benevolence; it is an essential part of love.</q> In reply to which we urge as +before that that which is the object of love, that which limits and conditions love, that +which furnishes the norm and reason for love, cannot itself be love, nor hold merely +equal rank with love. A double standard is as irrational in ethics as in commerce, and +it leads in ethics to the same debasement of the higher values, and the same unsettling +of relations, as has resulted in our currency from the attempt to make silver regulate +gold at the same time that gold regulates silver. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The Scriptural View.—According to the Scriptures, the ground of +moral obligation is the holiness of God, or the moral perfection of the +divine nature, conformity to which is the law of our moral being (Robinson, +Chalmers, Calderwood, Gregory, Wuttke). We show this: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) From the commands: <q>Ye shall be holy,</q> where the ground of +obligation assigned is simply and only: <q>for I am holy</q> (1 Pet. 1:16); +and <q>Ye therefore shall be perfect,</q> where the standard laid down is: <q>as +your heavenly Father is perfect</q> (Mat. 5:48). Here we have an ultimate +reason and ground for being and doing right, namely, that God is right, or, +in other words, that holiness is his nature. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) From the nature of the love in which the whole law is summed up +(Mat. 22:37—<q>Thou shalt love the Lord thy God</q>; Rom. 13:10—<q>love +therefore is the fulfilment of the law</q>). This love is not regard for +abstract right or for the happiness of being, much less for one's own +interest, but it is regard for God as the fountain and standard of moral +excellence, or in other words, love for God as holy. Hence this love is +the principle and source of holiness in man. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) From the example of Christ, whose life was essentially an exhibition +of supreme regard for God, and of supreme devotion to his holy will. +As Christ saw nothing good but what was in God (Mark 10:18—<q>none +is good save one, even God</q>), and did only what he saw the Father do +(John 5:19; see also 30—<q>I seek not mine own will, but the will of him +that sent me</q>), so for us, to be like God is the sum of all duty, and God's +infinite moral excellence is the supreme reason why we should be like him. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For statements of the correct view of the ground of moral obligation, see E. G. +Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 138-180; Chalmers, Moral Philosophy, +412-420; Calderwood, Moral Philosophy; Gregory, Christian Ethics, 112-122; Wuttke, +Christian Ethics, 2:80-107; Talbot, Ethical Prolegomena, in Bap. Quar., July, 1877:257-274—<q>The +ground of all moral law is the nature of God, or the ethical nature of God in +relation to the like nature in man, or the imperativeness of the divine nature.</q> Plato: +<q>The divine will is the fountain of all efficiency; the divine reason is the fountain, of +all law; the divine nature is the fountain of all virtue.</q> If it be said that God is love +<pb n='303'/><anchor id='Pg303'/> +as well as holiness, we ask: Love to what? And the only answer is: Love to the right, +or to holiness. To ask why right is a good, is no more sensible than to ask why happiness +is a good. There must be something ultimate. Schiller said there are people who +want to know why ten is not twelve. We cannot study character apart from conduct, +nor conduct apart from character. But this does not prevent us from recognizing +that character is the fundamental thing and that conduct is only the expression of it. +</p> + +<p> +The moral perfection of the divine nature includes truth and love, but since it is +holiness that conditions the exercise of every other attribute, we must conclude that +holiness is the ground of moral obligation. Infinity also unites with holiness to make +it the perfect ground, but since the determining element is holiness, we call this, and +not infinity, the ground of obligation. J. H. Harris, Baccalaureate Sermon, Bucknell +University, 1890—<q>As holiness is the fundamental attribute of God, so holiness is the +supreme good of man. Aristotle perceived this when he declared the chief good of +man to be energizing according to virtue. Christianity supplies the Holy Spirit and +makes this energizing possible.</q> Holiness is the goal of man's spiritual career; see +<emph>1 Thess. 3:13—<q>to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown's Rab and his Friends, 272—<q>Holiness and happiness +are two notions of one thing.... Unless therefore the heart of a created being +is at one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable.</q> It is more true to say +that holiness and happiness are, as cause and effect, inseparably bound together. +Martineau, Types, 1:xvi; 2:70-77—<q>Two classes of facts it is indispensable for us to +know: what are the springs of voluntary conduct, and what are its effects</q>; Study, +1:26—<q>Ethics must either perfect themselves in Religion, or disintegrate themselves +into Hedonism.</q> William Law remarks: <q>Ethics are not external but internal. The +essence of a moral act does not lie in its result, but in the motive from which it springs. +And that again is good or bad, according as it conforms to the character of God.</q> For +further discussion of the subject see our chapter on The Law of God. See also Thornwell, +Theology, 1:363-373; Hinton, Art of Thinking, 47-62; Goldwin Smith, in Contemporary +Review, March, 1882, and Jan. 1884; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 195-231, +esp. 223. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='304'/><anchor id='Pg304'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter II. Doctrine Of The Trinity.</head> + +<p> +In the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions which +are represented to us under the figure of persons, and these three are +equal. This tripersonality of the Godhead is exclusively a truth of revelation. +It is clearly, though not formally, made known in the New Testament, +and intimations of it may be found in the Old. +</p> + +<p> +The doctrine of the Trinity may be expressed in the six following +statements: 1. In Scripture there are three who are recognized as God. +2. These three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive +of them as distinct persons. 3. This tripersonality of the divine +nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal. +4. This tripersonality is not tritheism; for while there are three persons, +there is but one essence. 5. The three persons, Father, Son and Holy +Spirit, are equal. 6. Inscrutable yet not self-contradictory, this doctrine +furnishes the key to all other doctrines.—These statements we proceed now +to prove and to elucidate. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Reason shows us the Unity of God; only revelation shows us the Trinity of God, +thus filling out the indefinite outlines of this Unity and vivifying it. The term +<q>Trinity</q> is not found in Scripture, although the conception it expresses is Scriptural. +The invention of the term is ascribed to Tertullian. The Montanists first defined the +personality of the Spirit, and first formulated the doctrine of the Trinity. The term +<q>Trinity</q> is not a metaphysical one. It is only a designation of four facts: (1) the +Father is God; (2) the Son is God; (3) the Spirit is God; (4) there is but one God. +</p> + +<p> +Park: <q>The doctrine of the Trinity does not on the one hand assert that three persons +are united in one person, or three beings in one being, or three Gods in one God +(tritheism); nor on the other hand that God merely manifests himself in three different +ways (modal trinity, or trinity of manifestations); but rather that there are three +eternal distinctions in the substance of God.</q> Smyth, preface to Edwards, Observations +on the Trinity: <q>The church doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there are in +the Godhead three distinct hypostases or subsistences—the Father, the Son and the +Holy Spirit—each possessing one and the same divine nature, though in a different +manner. The essential points are (1) the unity of essence; (2) the reality of immanent +or ontological distinctions.</q> See Park on Edwards's View of the Trinity, in Bib. +Sac., April, 1881:333. Princeton Essays, 1:28—<q>There is one God; Father, Son, and +Holy Spirit are this one God; there is such a distinction between Father, Son and +Holy Spirit as to lay a sufficient ground for the reciprocal use of the personal pronouns.</q> +Joseph Cook: <q>(1) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God; +(2) each has a peculiarity incommunicable to the others; (3) neither is God without +the others; (4) each, with the others, is God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We regard the doctrine of the Trinity as implicitly held by the apostles and as +involved in the New Testament declarations with regard to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, +while we concede that the doctrine had not by the New Testament writers been formulated. +They held it, as it were in solution; only time, reflection, and the shock of controversy +and opposition, caused it to crystalize into definite and dogmatic form. +Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 59, 60, claims that the Jewish origin of Christianity +shows that the Jewish Messiah could not originally have been conceived of as +divine. If Jesus had claimed this, he would not have been taken before Pilate,—the +Jews would have dispatched him. The doctrine of the Trinity, says Chadwick, was not +developed until the Council of Nice, 325. E. G. Robinson: <q>There was no doctrine of +<pb n='305'/><anchor id='Pg305'/> +the Trinity in the Patristic period, as there was no doctrine of the Atonement before +Anselm.</q> The Outlook, Notes and Queries, March 30, 1901—<q>The doctrine of the +Trinity cannot be said to have taken final shape before the appearance of the so-called +Athanasian Creed in the 8th or 9th century. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 4th +century, is termed by Dr. Schaff, from the orthodox point of view, <q>semi-trinitarian.</q> +The earliest time known at which Jesus was deified was, after the New Testament +writers, in the letters of Ignatius, at the beginning of the second century.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Gore, Incarnation, 179—<q>The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard, as overheard, +in the statements of Scripture.</q> George P. Fisher quotes some able and pious +friend of his as saying: <q>What meets us in the New Testament is the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>disjecta membra</foreign> +of the Trinity.</q> G. B. Foster: <q>The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian attempt +to make intelligible the personality of God without dependence upon the world.</q> +Charles Kingsley said that, whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible or no, it +ought to be there, because our spiritual nature cries out for it. Shedd, Dogmatic +Theology, 1:250—<q>Though the doctrine of the Trinity is not discoverable by human +reason, it is susceptible of a rational defense, when revealed.</q> On New England Trinitarianism, +see New World, June, 1896:272-295—art. by Levi L. Paine. He says that +the last phase of it is represented by Phillips Brooks, James M. Whiton and George A. +Gordon. These hold to the essential divineness of humanity and preëminently of +Christ, the unique representative of mankind, who was, in this sense, a true incarnation +of Deity. See also, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 141, 287. +</p> + +<p> +Neander declared that the Trinity is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. He +was speaking however of the speculative, metaphysical form which the doctrine has +assumed in theology. But he speaks very differently of the devotional and practical +form in which the Scriptures present it, as in the baptismal formula and in the apostolic +benediction. In regard to this he says: <q>We recognize therein the essential contents +of Christianity summed up in brief.</q> Whiton, Gloria Patri, 10, 11, 55, 91, 92—<q>God +transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son. This one +nature belongs equally to God, to Christ, and to mankind, and in this fact is grounded +the immutableness of moral distinctions and the possibility of moral progress.... +The immanent life of the universe is one with the transcendent Power; the filial +stream is one with its paternal Fount. To Christ supremely belongs the name of Son, +which includes all that life that is begotten of God. In Christ the before unconscious +Sonship of the world awakes to consciousness of the Father. The Father is the Life +transcendent, above all; the Son is Life immanent, through all; the Holy Spirit is the +Life individualized, in all. In Christ we have collectivism; in the Holy Spirit we have +individualism; as Bunsen says: <q>The chief power in the world is personality.</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +For treatment of the whole doctrine, see Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:344-465; +Twesten, Dogmatik, and translation in Bib. Sac., 3:502; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:145-199; +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:57-135; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:203-229; Shedd, +Dogm. Theol., 1:248-333, and History of Doctrine, 1:246-385; Farrar, Science and Theology, +138; Schaff, Nicene Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in Theol. Eclectic, 4:209. For +the Unitarian view, see Norton, Statement of Reasons, and J. F. Clarke, Truths and +Errors of Orthodoxy. +</p> + +</quote> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. In Scriptures there are Three who are recognized as God.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Proofs from the New Testament.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>A. The Father is recognized as God.</head> + +<p> +The Father is recognized as God,—and that in so great a number of +passages (such as John 6:27—<q>him the Father, even God, hath sealed,</q> +and 1 Pet. 1:2—<q>foreknowledge of God the Father</q>) that we need not +delay to adduce extended proof. +</p> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) He is expressly called God. +</p> + +<p> +In John 1:1—Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the absence of the article shows Θεός to be +the predicate (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 4:24—πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός). This predicate precedes the verb +by way of emphasis, to indicate progress in the thought = <q>the Logos was +<pb n='306'/><anchor id='Pg306'/> +not only with God, but was God</q> (see Meyer and Luthardt, Comm. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). +<q>Only ὁ λόγος can be the subject, for in the whole Introduction the question +is, not who God is, but who the Logos is</q> (Godet). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Westcott in Bible Commentary, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>—<q>The predicate stands emphatically first. +It is necessarily without the article, inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word +and does not identify his person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say: <q>The Word +was ὁ Θεός.</q> Thus in verse 1 we have set forth the Word in his absolute eternal being, +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) his existence: beyond time; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) his personal existence: in active communion with +God; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) his nature: God in essence.</q> Marcus Dods, in Expositor's Greek Testament, +<hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>: <q>The Word is distinguishable from God, yet Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the word was God, +of divine nature; not <q>a God,</q> which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable, nor +yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been +inserted (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> 1 John 3:4).</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In John 1:18, μονογενὴς θεός—<q>the only begotten God</q>—must be regarded +as the correct reading, and as a plain ascription of absolute Deity to Christ. +He is not simply the only revealer of God, but he is himself God revealed. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 1:18—<q>No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath +declared him.</q></emph> In this passage, although Tischendorf (8th ed.) has μονογενὴς ὑιός, Westcott +and Hort (with א*BC*L Pesh. Syr.) read μονογενὴς Θεός and the Rev. Vers. puts +<q><emph>the only begotten God</emph></q> in the margin, though it retains <q><emph>the only begotten Son</emph></q> in the text. +Harnack says the reading μονογενὴς θεός is <q>established beyond contradiction</q>; see +Westcott, Bib. Com. on John, pages 32, 33. Here then we have a new and unmistakable +assertion of the deity of Christ. Meyer says that the apostles actually call Christ God +only in <emph>John 1:1</emph> and <emph>20:28</emph>, and that Paul never so recognizes him. But Meyer is able to +maintain his position only by calling the doxologies to Christ, in <emph>2 Tim. 4:18</emph>, <emph>Heb. 13:21</emph> and +<emph>2 Pet. 3:18</emph>, post-apostolic. See Thayer, N. T. Lexicon, on Θεός, and on μονογενής. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In John 20:28, the address of Thomas Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου—<q>My +Lord and my God</q>—since it was unrebuked by Christ, is equivalent to an +assertion on his own part of his claim to Deity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 20:28—<q>Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.</q></emph> This address cannot be +interpreted as a sudden appeal to God in surprise and admiration, without charging +the apostle with profanity. Nor can it be considered a mere exhibition of overwrought +enthusiasm, since it was accepted by Christ. Contrast the conduct of Paul and Barnabas +when the heathen at Lystra were bringing sacrifice to them as Jupiter and Mercury +(<emph>Acts 14:11-18</emph>). The words of Thomas, as addressed directly to Christ and as accepted +by Christ, can be regarded only as a just acknowledgment on the part of Thomas that +Christ was his Lord and his God. Alford, Commentary, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>: <q>The Socinian view +that these words are merely an exclamation is refuted (1) by the fact that no such +exclamations were in use among the Jews; (2) by the εἶπεν αὐτῷ; (3) by the impossibility +of referring the ὁ κύριός μου to another than Jesus: see <emph>verse 13</emph>; (4) by the N. T. +usage of expressing the vocative by the nominative with an article; (5) by the psychological +absurdity of such a supposition: that one just convinced of the presence of him +whom he dearly loved should, instead of addressing him, break out into an irrelevant +cry; (6) by the further absurdity of supposing that, if such were the case, the Apostle +John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly keeps in mind the object for +which he is writing, should have recorded anything so beside that object; (7) by the +intimate conjunction of πεπίστευκας.</q> <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>Mat. 5:34—<q>Swear not ... by the heaven</q></emph>—swearing +by Jehovah is not mentioned, because no Jew did so swear. This exclamation of +Thomas, the greatest doubter among the twelve, is the natural conclusion of John's +gospel. The thesis <emph><q>the Word was God</q> (John 1:1)</emph> has now become part of the life and consciousness +of the apostles. <emph>Chapter 21</emph> is only an Epilogue, or Appendix, written later by +John, to correct the error that he was not to die; see Westcott, Bible Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. +The Deity of Christ is the subject of the apostle who best understood his Master. +Lyman Beecher: <q>Jesus Christ is the acting Deity of the universe.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In Rom. 9:5, the clause ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητός cannot be translated +<q>blessed be the God over all,</q> for ὢν is superfluous if the clause is a doxology; +<q>εὐλογητός precedes the name of God in a doxology, but follows it, +<pb n='307'/><anchor id='Pg307'/> +as here, in a description</q> (Hovey). The clause can therefore justly be +interpreted only as a description of the higher nature of the Christ who +had just been said, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, or according to his lower nature, to have +had his origin from Israel (see Tholuck, Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Sanday, Com. on <emph>Rom. 9:5</emph>—<q>The words would naturally refer to Christ, unless <q><emph>God</emph></q> +is so definitely a proper name that it would imply a contrast in itself. We have seen +that this is not so.</q> Hence Sanday translates: <q><emph>of whom is the Christ as concerning the flesh, who is +over all, God blessed forever</emph></q>. See President T. Dwight, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:22-55; +<hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, Ezra Abbot, in the same journal, 1881:1-19, and Denney, in Expositor's Gk. +Test., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In Titus 2:13, ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ +Χριστοῦ we regard (with Ellicott) as <q>a direct, definite, and even studied +declaration of Christ's divinity</q> = <q>the ... appearing of the glory of +our great God and Savior Jesus Christ</q> (so English Revised Version). +Ἐπιφάνεια is a term applied specially to the Son and never to the Father, +and μεγάλου is uncalled for if used of the Father, but peculiarly appropriate +if used of Christ. Upon the same principles we must interpret the similar +text 2 Pet. 1:1 (see Huther, in Meyer's Com.: <q>The close juxtaposition +indicates the author's certainty of the oneness of God and Jesus Christ</q>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Titus 2:13—<q>looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ</q></emph>—so +the English Revised Version. The American Revisers however translate: <emph><q>the glory +of the great God and Savior</q></emph>; and Westcott and Hort bracket the word ἡμῶν. These considerations +somewhat lessen the cogency of this passage as a proof-text, yet upon the whole +the balance of argument seems to us still to incline in favor of Ellicott's interpretation +as given above. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In Heb. 1:8, πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν; ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεὸς, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is quoted as +an address to Christ, and verse 10 which follows—<q>Thou, Lord, in the +beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth</q>—by applying to Christ +an Old Testament ascription to Jehovah, shows that ὁ Θεός, in verse 8, is +used in the sense of absolute Godhead. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It is sometimes objected that the ascription of the name God to Christ proves nothing +as to his absolute deity, since angels and even human judges are called gods, as +representing God's authority and executing his will. But we reply that, while it is +true that the name is sometimes so applied, it is always with adjuncts and in connections +which leave no doubt of its figurative and secondary meaning. When, however, +the name is applied to Christ, it is, on the contrary, with adjuncts and in connections +which leave no doubt that it signifies absolute Godhead. See <emph>Ex. 4:16—<q>thou shalt be to +him as God</q></emph>; <emph>7:1—<q>See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh</q></emph>; <emph>22:28—<q rend='pre'>Thou shalt not revile God</q></emph>, [marg., <emph>the +judges</emph>], <emph><q rend='post'>nor curse a ruler of thy people</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 82:1—<q>God standeth in the congregation of God; he judgeth +among the gods</q></emph> [among the mighty]; <emph>6—<q>I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High</q></emph>; <emph>7—<q>Nevertheless +ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>John 10:34-36—<q>If he called them +gods, unto whom the word of God came</q></emph> (who were God's commissioned and appointed representatives), +how much more proper for him who is one with the Father to call himself God. +</p> + +<p> +As in <emph>Ps. 82:7</emph> those who had been called gods are represented as dying, so in <emph>Ps. 97:7—<q>Worship +him, all ye gods</q></emph>—they are bidden to fall down before Jehovah. Ann. Par. Bible: +<q>Although the deities of the heathen have no positive existence, they are often +described in Scripture as if they had, and are represented as bowing down before the +majesty of Jehovah.</q> This verse is quoted in <emph>Heb. 1:6—<q>let all the angels of God worship him</q></emph>—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, +Christ. Here Christ is identified with Jehovah. The quotation is made from the +Septuagint, which has <q><emph>angels</emph></q> for <q><emph>gods</emph>.</q> <q>Its use here is in accordance with the spirit +of the Hebrew word, which includes all that human error might regard as objects of +worship.</q> Those who are figuratively and rhetorically called <q><emph>gods</emph></q> are bidden to fall +down in worship before him who is the true God, Jesus Christ. See Dick, Lectures on +Theology, 1:314; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 10. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='308'/><anchor id='Pg308'/> + +<p> +In 1 John 5:20—ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτος +ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός—<q>it would be a flat repetition, after the Father had +been twice called ὁ ἀληθινός, to say now again: <q>this is ὁ ἀληθενὸς Θεός.</q> Our +being in God has its basis in Christ his Son, and this also makes it more +natural that οὖτος should be referred to υἱῷ. But ought not ὁ ἀληθενός then +to be without the article (as in John 1:1—Θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος)? No, for it is +John's purpose in 1 John 5:20 to say, not <emph>what</emph> Christ is, but <emph>who</emph> he +is. In declaring <emph>what</emph> one is, the predicate must have no article; in +declaring <emph>who</emph> one is, the predicate must have the article. St. John here +says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests, is this true +God himself</q> (see Ebrard, Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Other passages might be here adduced, as <emph>Col. 2:9—<q>in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead +bodily</q></emph>; <emph>Phil 2:6—<q>existing in the form of God</q></emph>; but we prefer to consider these under other +heads as indirectly proving Christ's divinity. Still other passages once relied upon as +direct statements of the doctrine must be given up for textual reasons. Such are <emph>Acts +20:28</emph>, where the correct reading is in all probability not ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, but ἐκκλησίαν +τοῦ Κυρίου (so ACDE Tregelles and Tischendorf; B and א, however, have τοῦ Θεοῦ. The +Rev. Vers. continues to read <q><emph>church of God</emph></q>; Amer. Revisers, however, read <emph><q>church of the +Lord</q></emph>—see Ezra Abbot's investigation in Bib. Sac., 1876: 313-352); and <emph>1 Tim. 3:16</emph>, where +ὅς is unquestionably to be substituted for Θεός, though even here ἐφανερώθη intimates +preëxistence. +</p> + +<p> +Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., before the Unitarian Club, Boston, November, 1882—<q>Fifty +years of study, thought and reading given largely to the Bible and to the literature +which peculiarly relates to it, have brought me to this conclusion, that the book—taken +with the especial divine quality and character claimed for it, and so extensively +assigned to it, as inspired and infallible as a whole, and in all its contents—is +an Orthodox book. It yields what is called the Orthodox creed. The vast majority of +its readers, following its letter, its obvious sense, its natural meaning, and yielding to +the impression which some of its emphatic texts make upon them, find in it Orthodoxy. +Only that kind of ingenious, special, discriminative, and in candor I must add, forced +treatment, which it receives from us liberals can make the book teach anything but +Orthodoxy. The evangelical sects, so called, are clearly right in maintaining that +their view of Scripture and of its doctrines draws a deep and wide division of creed +between them and ourselves. In that earnest controversy by pamphlet warfare +between Drs. Channing and Ware on the one side, and Drs. Worcester and Woods and +Professor Stuart on the other—a controversy which wrought up the people of our community +sixty years ago more than did our recent political campaign—I am fully convinced +that the liberal contestants were worsted. Scripture exegesis, logic and argument +were clearly on the side of the Orthodox contestants. And this was so, mainly +because the liberal party put themselves on the same plane with the Orthodox in their +way of regarding and dealing with Scripture texts in their bearing upon the controversy. +Liberalism cannot vanquish Orthodoxy, if it yields to the latter in its own +way of regarding and treating the whole Bible. Martin Luther said that the Papists +burned the Bible because it was not on their side. Now I am not about to attack the +Bible because it is not on my side; but I am about to object as emphatically as I can +against a character and quality assigned to the Bible, which it does not claim for itself, +which cannot be certified for it: and the origin and growth and intensity of the fond +and superstitious influences resulting in that view we can trace distinctly to agencies +accounting for, but not warranting, the current belief. Orthodoxy cannot readjust +its creeds till it readjusts its estimate of the Scriptures. The only relief which one who +professes the Orthodox creed can find is either by forcing his ingenuity into the proof-texts +or indulging his liberty outside of them.</q> +</p> + +<p> +With this confession of a noted Unitarian it is interesting to compare the opinion of +the so-called Trinitarian, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who says that the New Testament +nowhere calls Christ God, but everywhere calls him man, as in <emph>1 Tim. 2:5—<q>for there is one +God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.</q></emph> On this passage Prof. L. L. Paine +remarks in the New World, Dec. 1894—<q>That Paul ever confounded Christ with God +himself, or regarded him as in any way the Supreme Divinity, is a position invalidated +not only by direct statements, but also by the whole drift of his epistles.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='309'/><anchor id='Pg309'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Old Testament descriptions of God are applied to him. +</p> + +<p> +This application to Christ of titles and names exclusively appropriated +to God is inexplicable, if Christ was not regarded as being himself God. +The peculiar awe with which the term <q>Jehovah</q> was set apart by a nation +of strenuous monotheists as the sacred and incommunicable name of the +one self-existent and covenant-keeping God forbids the belief that the +Scripture writers could have used it as the designation of a subordinate +and created being. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 3:3—<q>Make ye ready the way of the Lord</q></emph>—is a quotation from <emph>Is. 40:3—<q>Prepare ye ... the +way of Jehovah.</q></emph> <emph>John 12:41—<q>These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of him</q></emph> [<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, +Christ]—refers to <emph>Is. 6:1—<q>In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.</q></emph> So in +<emph>Eph. 4:7, 8—<q>measure of the gift of Christ ... led captivity captive</q></emph>—is an application to Christ of +what is said of Jehovah in <emph>Ps. 68:18</emph>. In <emph>1 Pet. 3:15</emph>, moreover, we read, with all the great +uncials, several of the Fathers, and all the best versions: <emph><q>sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord</q></emph>; +here the apostle borrows his language from <emph>Is. 8:13</emph>, where we read: <q><emph>Jehovah of hosts, him +shall ye sanctify</emph>.</q> When we remember that, with the Jews, God's covenant-title was so +sacred that for the Kethib (= <q>written</q>) <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Jehovah</foreign> there was always substituted the +Keri (= <q>read</q>—imperative) <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Adonai</foreign>, in order to avoid pronunciation of the great +Name, it seems the more remarkable that the Greek equivalent of <q>Jehovah</q> should +have been so constantly used of Christ. <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>Rom. 10:9—<q>confess ... Jesus as Lord</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 12:3—<q>no +man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.</q></emph> We must remember also the indignation +of the Jews at Christ's assertion of his equality and oneness with the Father. Compare +Goethe's, <q>Wer darf ihn nennen?</q> with Carlyle's, <q>the awful Unnameable of this +Universe.</q> The Jews, it has been said, have always vibrated between monotheism and +moneytheism. Yet James, the strongest of Hebrews, in his Epistle uses the word 'Lord' +freely and alternately of God the Father and of Christ the Son. This would have been +impossible if James had not believed in the community of essence between the Son +and the Father. +</p> + +<p> +It is interesting to note that 1 Maccabees does not once use the word Θεός or κύριος, +or any other direct designation of God unless it be οὐρανός (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph><q>swear ... by the heaven</q>—Mat. +5:34</emph>). So the book of Esther contains no mention of the name of God, though +the apocryphal additions to Esther, which are found only in Greek, contain the name +of God in the first verse, and mention it in all eight times. See Bissell, Apocrypha, in +Lange's Commentary; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 93; Max Müller on Semitic Monotheism, +in Chips from a German Workshop, 1:337. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) He possesses the attributes of God. +</p> + +<p> +Among these are life, self-existence, immutability, truth, love, holiness, +eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. All these attributes are +ascribed to Christ in connections which show that the terms are used in no +secondary sense, nor in any sense predicable of a creature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Life</hi>: <emph>John 1:4—<q>In him was life</q></emph>; <emph>14:6—<q>I am ... the life.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Self-existence</hi>: <emph>John 5:26—<q>have +life in himself</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 7:16—<q>power of an endless life.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Immutability</hi>: <emph>Heb. 13:8—<q>Jesus Christ is the same +yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Truth</hi>: <emph>John 14:6—<q>I am ... the truth</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 3:7—<q>he that is +true.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Love</hi>: <emph>1 John 3:16—<q>Hereby know we love</q></emph> (τὴν ἀγάπην = the personal Love, as the personal +Truth) <q><emph>because he laid down his life for us</emph>.</q> <hi rend='italic'>Holiness</hi>: <emph>Luke 1:35—<q>that which is to be born shall +be called holy, the Son of God</q></emph>; <emph>John 6:69—<q>thou art the Holy One of God</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 7:26—<q>holy, guileless, undefiled, +separated from sinners.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Eternity</hi>: <emph>John 1:1—<q>In the beginning was the Word.</q></emph> Godet says ἐν ἀρχῇ = not <q>in eternity,</q> +but <q>in the beginning of the creation</q>; the eternity of the Word being an inference +from the ἦν—the Word <emph>was</emph>, when the world was <emph>created</emph>: <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Gen. 1:1—<q>In the beginning God +created.</q></emph> But Meyer says, ἐν ἀρχῇ here rises above the historical conception of <q><emph>in the +beginning</emph></q> in Genesis (which includes the beginning of time itself) to the absolute conception +of anteriority to time; the creation is something subsequent. He finds a parallel +in <emph>Prov. 8:23—ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι</emph>. The interpretation <q>in the beginning of +the gospel</q> is entirely unexegetical; so Meyer. So <emph>John 17:5—<q>glory which I had with thee +before the world was</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:4—<q>chose us in him before the foundation of the world.</q></emph> Dorner also says +that ἐν ἀρχῇ in <emph>John 1:1</emph> is not <q>the beginning of the world,</q> but designates the point +<pb n='310'/><anchor id='Pg310'/> +back of which it is impossible to go, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, eternity; the world is first spoken of in <emph>verse 3. +John 8:58—<q>Before Abraham was born, I am</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1:15</emph>; <emph>Col. 1:17—<q>he is before all things</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 1:11</emph>—the +heavens <q><emph>shall perish; but thou continuest</emph></q>; <emph>Rev. 21:6—<q>I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Omnipresence</hi>: <emph>Mat. 28:20—<q>I am with you always</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 1:23—<q>the fulness of him that filleth all in +all.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Omniscience</hi>: <emph>Mat. 9:4—<q>Jesus knowing their thoughts</q></emph>; <emph>John 2:24, 25—<q>knew all men ... knew +what was in man</q></emph>; <emph>16:30—<q>knowest all things</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 1:24—<q>Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men</q></emph>—a +prayer offered before the day of Pentecost and showing the attitude of the disciples +toward their Master; <emph>1 Cor. 4:5—<q>until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of +darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 2:3—<q>in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge hidden.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Omnipotence</hi>: <emph>Mat. 27:18—<q>All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on +earth</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 1:8—<q>the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 1:249-260, holds that Jesus' preëxistence is simply the +concrete form given to an ideal conception. Jesus traces himself back, as everything +else holy and divine was traced back in the conceptions of his time, to a heavenly +original in which it preëxisted before its earthly appearance; <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>: the tabernacle, in +<emph>Heb. 8:5</emph>; Jerusalem, in <emph>Gal. 4:25</emph> and <emph>Rev. 21:10</emph>; the kingdom of God in <emph>Mat. 13:24</emph>; much +more the Messiah, in <emph>John 6:62—<q>ascending where he was before</q></emph>; <emph>8:58—<q>Before Abraham was born, I +am</q></emph>; <emph>17:4, 5—<q>glory which I had with thee before the world was</q></emph> <emph>17:24—<q>thou lovedst me before the foundation +of the world.</q></emph> This view that Jesus existed before creation only ideally in the divine +mind, means simply that God foreknew him and his coming. The view is refuted by +the multiplied intimations of a personal, in distinction from an ideal, preëxistence. +</p> + +<p> +Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 115—<q>The words <emph><q>In the beginning</q> (John 1:1)</emph> suggest that +the author is about to write a second book of Genesis, an account of a new creation.</q> +As creation presupposes a Creator, the preëxistence of the personal Word is assigned +as the explanation of the being of the universe. The ἦν indicates absolute existence, +which is a loftier idea than that of mere preëxistence, although it includes this. While +John the Baptist and Abraham are said to have arisen, appeared, come into being, it +is said that the Logos <emph>was</emph>, and that the Logos was <emph>God</emph>. This implies coëternity with +the Father. But, if the view we are combating were correct, John the Baptist and +Abraham preëxisted, equally with Christ. This is certainly not the meaning of Jesus +in <emph>John 8:58—<q>Before Abraham was born, I am</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Col. 1:17—<q>he is before all things</q></emph>—<q>αὐτός emphasizes +the personality, while ἔστιν declares that the preëxistence is absolute existence</q> +(Lightfoot); <emph>John 1:15—<q>He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me</q></emph> = not that +Jesus was <emph>born</emph> earlier than John the Baptist, for he was born six months later, but +that he <emph>existed</emph> earlier. He stands before John in rank, because he existed long +before John in time; <emph>6:62—<q>the Son of man ascending where he was before</q></emph>; <emph>16:28—<q>I came out from +the Father, and am come into the world.</q></emph> So <emph>Is. 9:6, 7</emph>, calls Christ <q><emph>Everlasting Father</emph></q> = eternity is +an attribute of the Messiah. T. W. Chambers, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:169-171—<q>Christ +is the Everlasting One, <emph><q>whose goings forth have been from of old, even from the days of eternity</q> +(Micah 5:2). <q>Of the increase of his government ... there shall be no end,</q></emph> just because of his +existence there has been no beginning.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(d) The works of God are ascribed to him. +</p> + +<p> +We do not here speak of miracles, which may be wrought by communicated +power, but of such works as the creation of the world, the upholding +of all things, the final raising of the dead, and the judging of all men. +Power to perform these works cannot be delegated, for they are characteristic +of omnipotence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Creation</hi>: <emph>John 1:3—<q>All things were made through him</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 8:6—<q>one lord, Jesus Christ, through +whom are all things</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 1:16—<q>all things have been created through him, and unto him</q></emph>; <emph>Heb, 1:10—<q>Thou, +Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands</q></emph>; <emph>3:3, 4—<q>he +that built all things is God</q></emph> = Christ, the builder of the house of Israel, is the God who +made all things; <emph>Rev. 3:14—<q>the beginning of the creation of God</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Plato: <q>Mind is the ἀρχή +of motion</q>). <hi rend='italic'>Upholding</hi>: <emph>Col. 1:17—<q>in him all things consist</q></emph> (marg. <q><emph>hold together</emph></q>); <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q>upholding +all things by the word of his power.</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Raising the dead and judging the world</hi>: <emph>John 5:27-29—<q>authority +to execute judgment ... all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth</q></emph>; +<emph>Mat. 25:31, 32—<q>sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all the nations.</q></emph> If our argument +were addressed wholly to believers, we might also urge Christ's work in the world +as Revealer of God and Redeemer from sin, as a proof of his deity. [On the works of +Christ, see Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 153; <hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, see Examination of Liddon's +Bampton Lectures, 72.] +</p> + +<pb n='311'/><anchor id='Pg311'/> + +<p> +Statements of Christ's creative and of his upholding activity are combined in <emph>John +1:3, 4—Πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὅ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν—<q>All +things were made through him; and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him</q></emph> +(marg.). Westcott: <q>It would be difficult to find a more complete consent of ancient +authorities in favor of any reading than that which supports this punctuation.</q> +Westcott therefore adopts it. The passage shows that the universe 1. exists within +the bounds of Christ's being; 2. is not dead, but living; 3. derives its life from him; +see Inge, Christian Mysticism, 46. Creation requires the divine presence, as well as +the divine agency. God creates through Christ. All things were made, not ὐπὸ αὐτοῦ—<q>by +him,</q> but δι᾽ αὐτοῦ—<emph><q>through him.</q></emph> Christian believers <q>Behind creation's throbbing +screen Catch movements of the great Unseen.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, iv, lvi—<q>That which many a philosopher +dimly conjectured, namely, that God did not produce the world in an absolute, immediate +manner, but in some way or other, mediately, here presents itself to us with the +lustre of revelation, and exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of God to our +deep and reverential homage.</q> Would that such scientific men as Tyndall and Huxley +might see Christ in nature, and, doing his will, might learn of the doctrine and be +led to the Father! The humblest Christian who sees Christ's hand in the physical universe +and in human history knows more of the secret of the universe than all the mere +scientists put together. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Col 1:17—<q>In him all things consist,</q></emph> or <emph><q>hold together,</q></emph> means nothing less than that Christ is the +principle of cohesion in the universe, making it a cosmos instead of a chaos. Tyndall +said that the attraction of the sun upon the earth was as inconceivable as if a horse +should draw a cart without traces. Sir Isaac Newton: <q>Gravitation must be caused by +an agent acting constantly according to certain laws.</q> Lightfoot: <q>Gravitation is an +expression of the mind of Christ.</q> Evolution also is a method of his operation. The +laws of nature are the habits of Christ, and nature itself is but his steady and constant +will. He binds together man and nature in one organic whole, so that we can speak +of a <q>universe.</q> Without him there would be no intellectual bond, no uniformity +of law, no unity of truth. He is the principle of induction, that enables us to argue +from one thing to another. The medium of interaction between things is also the +medium of intercommunication between minds. It is fitting that he who draws and +holds together the physical and intellectual, should also draw and hold together the +moral universe, drawing all men to himself (<emph>John 12:32</emph>) and so to God, and reconciling +all things in heaven and earth (<emph>Col. 1:20</emph>). In Christ <q>the law appears, Drawn out in +living characters,</q> because he is the ground and source of all law, both in nature and +in humanity. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 6-12. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) He receives honor and worship due only to God. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the address of Thomas, in John 20:28, which we have +already cited among the proofs that Jesus is expressly called God, and in +which divine honor is paid to him, we may refer to the prayer and worship +offered by the apostolic and post-apostolic church. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 5:23—<q>that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father</q></emph>; <emph>14:14—<q rend='pre'>If ye shall ask me</q></emph> [so אB +and Tisch. 8th ed.] <emph><q rend='post'>anything in my name, that will I do</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 7:59—<q>Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, +Lord Jesus, receive my spirit</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Luke 23:46</emph>—Jesus' words: <emph><q>Father, into thy hands I commend my +spirit</q></emph>); <emph>Rom. 10:9—<q>confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord</q></emph>; <emph>13—<q>whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord +shall be saved</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Gen. 4:26—<q>Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah</q></emph>); <emph>1 Cor. 11:24, 25—<q>this do +in remembrance of me</q></emph> = worship of Christ; <emph>Heb. 1:6—<q>let all the angels of God worship him</q></emph>; <emph>Phil. 2:10, +11—<q>in the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. +5:12-14—<q>Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power....</q></emph>; <emph>2 Pet. 3:18—<q>Lord and Savior +Jesus Christ. To him be the glory</q></emph>; <emph>2 Tim. 4:18 and Heb. 13:21—<q>to whom be the glory for ever and ever</q></emph>—these +ascriptions of eternal glory to Christ imply his deity. See also <emph>1 Pet. 3:15—<q>Sanctify +in your hearts Christ as Lord,</q></emph> and <emph>Eph. 5:21—<q>subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.</q></emph> +Here is enjoined an attitude of mind towards Christ which would be idolatrous if +Christ were not God. See Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 266, 366. +</p> + +<p> +Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 154—<q>In the eucharistic liturgy of the <q>Teaching</q> +we read: <q>Hosanna to the God of David</q>; Ignatius styles him repeatedly God +<q>begotten and unbegotten, come in the flesh</q>; speaking once of <q>the blood of God</q>, in +evident allusion to <emph>Acts 20:28</emph>; the epistle to Diognetus takes up the Pauline words and +calls him the <q>architect and world-builder by whom [God] created the heavens</q>, and +<pb n='312'/><anchor id='Pg312'/> +names him God (chap. vii); Hermas speaks of him as <q>the holy preëxistent Spirit, that +created every creature</q>, which style of expression is followed by Justin, who calls him +God, as also all the later great writers. In the second epistle of Clement (130-160, Harnack), +we read: <q>Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God—as +the Judge of the living and the dead.</q> And Ignatius describes him as <q>begotten +and unbegotten, passible and impassible, ... who was before the eternities with the +Father.</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +These testimonies only give evidence that the Church Fathers saw in Scripture +divine honor ascribed to Christ. They were but the precursors of a host of later interpreters. +In a lull of the awful massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassouan, one of +the Kurdish savages was heard to ask: <q>Who was that <q>Lord Jesus</q> that they were +calling to?</q> In their death agonies, the Christians, like Stephen of old, called upon +the name of the Lord. Robert Browning quoted, in a letter to a lady in her last illness, +the words of Charles Lamb, when <q>in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and +they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood +once more—on the first suggestion, <q>And if Christ entered this room?</q> changed his +tone at once and stuttered out as his manner was when moved: <q>You see—if Shakespere +entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.</q></q> On prayer to +Jesus, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, note F; Bernard, in Hastings' Bib. Dict., 4:44; +Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 9, 288. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) His name is associated with that of God upon a footing of equality. +</p> + +<p> +We do not here allude to 1 John 5:7 (the three heavenly witnesses), for +the latter part of this verse is unquestionably spurious; but to the formula +of baptism, to the apostolic benedictions, and to those passages in which +eternal life is said to be dependent equally upon Christ and upon God, or +in which spiritual gifts are attributed to Christ equally with the Father. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The formula of baptism</hi>: <emph>Mat. 28:19—<q>baptising them into the name of the father and of the Son and of +the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Acts 2:38—<q>be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 6:3—<q>baptized +into Christ Jesus.</q></emph> <q>In the common baptismal formula the Son and the Spirit are coördinated +with the Father, and εἰς ὄνομα has religious significance.</q> It would be both +absurd and profane to speak of baptizing into the name of the Father and of Moses. +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>The apostolic benedictions</hi>: <emph>1 Cor. 1:3—<q>Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus +Christ</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 13:14—<q>The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy +Spirit, be with you all.</q></emph> <q>In the benedictions grace is something divine, and Christ has +power to impart it. But why do we find <emph><q>God,</q></emph> instead of simply <emph><q>the Father,</q></emph> as in the baptismal +formula? Because it is only the Father who does not become man or have a +historical existence. Elsewhere he is specially called <q><emph>God the Father</emph>,</q> to distinguish him +from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (<emph>Gal. 1:3</emph>; <emph>Eph. 3:14</emph>; <emph>6:23</emph>).</q> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend='italic'>Other passages</hi>: <emph>John 5:23—<q>that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father</q></emph>; <emph>John 14:1—<q>believe +in God, believe also in me</q></emph>—double imperative (so Westcott, Bible Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>); +<emph>17:3—<q>this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus +Christ</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 11:27—<q>no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and +he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 12:4-6—<q rend='pre'>the same Spirit ... the same Lord</q></emph> [Christ] ... +<emph><q rend='post'>the same God</q></emph> [the Father] bestow spiritual gifts, <hi rend='italic'>e. g.</hi>, faith: <emph>Rom. 10:17—<q>belief cometh of hearing, +and hearing by the word of Christ</q></emph>; peace: <emph>Col. 3:15—<q>let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.</q></emph> <emph>2 Thess. +2:16, 17—<q>now our lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father ... comfort your hearts</q></emph>—two names +with a verb in the singular intimate the oneness of the Father and the Son (Lillie). <emph>Eph. +5:5—<q>kingdom of Christ and God</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 3:1—<q>Christ ... seated on the right hand of God</q></emph> = participation +in the sovereignty of the universe,—the Eastern divan held not only the monarch +but his son; <emph>Rev. 20:6—<q>priests of God and of Christ</q></emph>; <emph>22:3—<q>the throne of God and of the Lamb</q></emph>; <emph>16—<q>the +root and the offspring of David</q></emph> = both the Lord of David and his son. Hackett: <q>As the +dying Savior said to the Father, <emph><q>Into thy hands I commend my spirit</q> (Luke 23:46)</emph>, so the dying +Stephen said to the Savior, <emph><q>receive my spirit</q> (Acts 7:59)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) Equality with God is expressly claimed. +</p> + +<p> +Here we may refer to Jesus' testimony to himself, already treated of +among the proofs of the supernatural character of the Scripture teaching +(see pages <ref target='Pg189'>189</ref>, <ref target='Pg190'>190</ref>). Equality with God is not only claimed for himself by +Jesus, but it is claimed for him by his apostles. +</p> + +<pb n='313'/><anchor id='Pg313'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 5:18—<q>called God his own Father, making himself equal with God</q></emph>; <emph>Phil. 2:6—<q>who, existing in the form +of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped</q></emph>—counted not his equality +with God a thing to be forcibly retained. Christ made and left upon his contemporaries +the impression that he claimed to be God. The New Testament has left, upon the +great mass of those who have read it, the impression that Jesus Christ claims to be God. +If he is not God, he is a deceiver or is self-deceived, and, in either case, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Christus, si non +Deus, non bonus</foreign>. See Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 187. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>h</hi>) Further proof of Christ's deity may be found in the application to +him of the phrases: <q>Son of God,</q> <q>Image of God</q>; in the declarations +of his oneness with God; in the attribution to him of the fulness of the +Godhead. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 26:63, 64—<q>I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. +Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said</q></emph>—it is for this testimony that Christ dies. <emph>Col. 1:15—<q>the +image of the invisible God</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q rend='pre'>the effulgence of his</q></emph> [the Father's] <emph><q rend='post'>glory, and the very image of +his substance</q></emph>; <emph>John 10:30—<q>I and the Father are one</q></emph>; <emph>14:9—<q>he that hath seen me hath seen the Father</q></emph>; <emph>17:11, +22—<q>that they may be one, even as we are</q></emph>—ἕ, not εἰς; <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>unum</foreign>, not <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>unus</foreign>; one substance, not +one person. <q><foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Unum</foreign> is antidote to the Arian, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>sumus</foreign> to the Sabellian heresy.</q> <emph>Col. 2:9—<q>in +him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>1:19—<q>for it was the pleasure of the Father +that in him should all the fulness dwell;</q></emph> or (marg.) <q><emph>for the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in him</emph>.</q> +<emph>John 16:15—<q>all things whatsoever the Father hath are mine</q></emph>; <emph>17:10—<q>all things that are mine are thine, and +thine are mine.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +Meyer on <emph>John 10:30—<q>I and the Father are one</q></emph>—<q>Here the Arian understanding of a mere +ethical harmony as taught in the words <q><emph>are one</emph></q> is unsatisfactory, because irrelevant to +the exercise of power. Oneness of essence, though not contained in the words themselves, +is, by the necessities of the argument, presupposed in them.</q> Dalman, The +Words of Jesus: <q>Nowhere do we find that Jesus called himself the Son of God in such +a sense as to suggest a merely religious and ethical relation to God—a relation which +others also possessed and which they were capable of attaining or were destined to +acquire.</q> We may add that while in the lower sense there are many <q><emph>sons of God</emph>,</q> there +is but one <q><emph>only begotten Son</emph>.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>i</hi>) These proofs of Christ's deity from the New Testament are corroborated +by Christian experience. +</p> + +<p> +Christian experience recognizes Christ as an absolutely perfect Savior, +perfectly revealing the Godhead and worthy of unlimited worship and +adoration; that is, it practically recognizes him as Deity. But Christian +experience also recognizes that through Christ it has introduction and +reconciliation to God as one distinct from Jesus Christ, as one who was +alienated from the soul by its sin, but who is now reconciled through +Jesus's death. In other words, while recognizing Jesus as God, we are +also compelled to recognize a distinction between the Father and the Son +through whom we come to the Father. +</p> + +<p> +Although this experience cannot be regarded as an independent witness +to Jesus' claims, since it only tests the truth already made known in the +Bible, still the irresistible impulse of every person whom Christ has saved +to lift his Redeemer to the highest place, and bow before him in the lowliest +worship, is strong evidence that only that interpretation of Scripture can +be true which recognizes Christ's absolute Godhead. It is the church's +consciousness of her Lord's divinity, indeed, and not mere speculation +upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that has compelled the +formulation of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians <q>quod essent soliti +carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.</q> The prayers and hymns of the church +show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have +<pb n='314'/><anchor id='Pg314'/> +received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding +words of a prayer, <q>For Christ's sake, Amen,</q> when awakened from physical slumber +in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence +and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. In <emph>Eph. 4:32</emph>, the Revised Version substitutes +<q><emph>in Christ</emph></q> for <q>for Christ's sake.</q> The exact phrase <q>for Christ's sake</q> is not +found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase <emph><q>for my name's +sake</q> (Ps. 25:11)</emph> passes into the N. T. phrase <emph><q>in the name of Jesus</q> (Phil. 2:10)</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Ps. 72:15—<q>men +shall pray for him continually</q></emph> = the words of the hymn: <q>For him shall endless prayer +be made, And endless blessings crown his head.</q> All this is proof that the idea of +prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent. +</p> + +<p> +A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back +to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a +cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this +ill-spelled inscription: <q>Alexamenos adores his God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. +William E. Gladstone: <q>All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based +upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.</q> E. G. +Robinson: <q>When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.</q> +W. G. T. Shedd: <q>The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the +consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.</q> On +the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, +Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, +in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, +we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as +truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him +as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that +the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our +Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was +in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; +and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent +with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be +spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further +elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent +examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant: <emph>Mark 13:32—<q>of that day or that +hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.</q></emph> He was subject to +physical fatigue: <emph>John 4:6—<q>Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.</q></emph> There +was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh: <emph>Phil. 2:7—<q>emptied himself, +taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men</q></emph>; <emph>John 14:28—<q>the Father is greater than I.</q></emph> +There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent +with equality of essence and oneness with God; <emph>1 Cor. 15:28—<q>then shall the Son also himself +be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.</q></emph> This must be interpreted +consistently with <emph>John 17:5—<q>glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before +the world was,</q></emph> and with <emph>Phil. 2:6</emph>, where this glory is described as being <q><emph>the form of God</emph></q> and +<q><emph>equality with God</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never +involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at +times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet +here we must distinguish between what he <emph>intended</emph> to teach and what was merely +<emph>incidental</emph> to his teaching. When he said: Moses <emph><q>wrote of me</q> (John 5:46)</emph> and <emph><q>David in the +Spirit called him Lord</q> (Mat. 22:43)</emph>, if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch +and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. +But it is possible that he intended only to <emph>locate</emph> the passages referred to, and if so, his +words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, +The Mind in Christ, 136—<q>If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the +passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due +to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David. +<pb n='315'/><anchor id='Pg315'/> +There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.</q> Adamson +rather more precariously suggests that <q>there may have been a lapse of memory +in Jesus' mention of <emph><q>Zachariah, son of Barachiah</q> (Mat. 23:35)</emph>, since this was a matter of no +spiritual import.</q> +</p> + +<p> +For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, see <emph>John 2:24, 25—<q>he knew all men ... he needed not +that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man</q></emph>; <emph>6:64—<q>Jesus knew from +the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him</q></emph>; <emph>12:33—<q>this he said, signifying +by what manner of death he should die</q></emph>; <emph>21:19—<q rend='pre'>Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he</q></emph> +[Peter] <emph><q rend='post'>should glorify God</q></emph>; <emph>13:1—<q>knowing that his hour was come that he should depart</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 25:31—<q>when +the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his +glory</q></emph> = he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances +are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter +(<emph>John 1:42</emph>); 2. his finding Philip (<emph>1:43</emph>); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (<emph>1:47-50</emph>); 4. of +the woman of Samaria (<emph>4:17-19, 39</emph>); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (<emph>Luke 5:6-9</emph>; <emph>John +21:6</emph>); 6. death of Lazarus (<emph>John 11:14</emph>); 7. the ass's colt (<emph>Mat. 21:2</emph>); 8. of the upper room +(<emph>Mark 14:15</emph>); 9. of Peter's denial (<emph>Mat. 26:34</emph>); 10. of the manner of his own death (<emph>John +12:33</emph>; <emph>18:32</emph>); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (<emph>John 21:19</emph>); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem +(<emph>Mat. 24:2</emph>). +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did +not know the day of the end (<emph>Mark 13:32</emph>), though even here he intimates his superiority +to angels; <emph>5:30-34—<q>Who touched my garments?</q></emph> though even here power had gone forth +from him to heal; <emph>John 11:34—<q>Where have ye laid him?</q></emph> though here he is about to raise +Lazarus from the dead; <emph>Mark 11:13—<q>seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might +find anything thereon</q></emph> = he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. +With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the +judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—<q>We must decline to stake the authority +of Jesus on a question of literary criticism</q>; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—<q>That +the use by our Lord of such a phrase as <q><emph>Moses wrote of me</emph></q> binds us to the Mosaic authorship +of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.</q> See our section on +The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Swayne, +Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims +that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement. +</p> + +<p> +It is inconceivable that any mere <emph>creature</emph> should say, <q>God is greater than I am,</q> +or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming <q>subject to +God.</q> In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (<emph>Acts 1:2—<q>after that he +had given commandment through the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>10:38—<q>God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God +was with him</q></emph>; <emph>Heb.9:14—<q>through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God</q></emph>), but in his +state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυρίου πνεύματος—<emph>2 Cor. 3:18</emph>—Meyer), +giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit. <emph>Heb. 2:7</emph>, marg.—<emph><q>Thou madest him for a little +while lower than the angels.</q></emph> On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, +Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458; +<hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, +Divinity of Christ. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>C. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) He is spoken of as God; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the attributes of God are ascribed to +him, such as life, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, +omnipotence; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) he does the works of God, such as creation, regeneration, +resurrection; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) he receives honor due only to God; (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) he is associated +with God on a footing of equality, both in the formula of baptism +and in the apostolic benedictions. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Spoken of as God.</hi> <emph>Acts 5:3, 4—<q>lie to the Holy Spirit ... not lied unto men, but unto God</q></emph>; +<emph>1 Cor. 3:16—<q>ye are a temple of God ... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you</q></emph>; <emph>6:19—<q>your body is a temple of the +Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>12:4-6 <q>same Spirit ... same Lord ... same God, who worketh all things in all</q></emph>—<q>The +divine Trinity is here indicated in an ascending climax, in such a way that we pass +from the Spirit who bestows the gifts to the Lord [Christ] who is served by means of +them, and finally to God, who as the absolute first cause and possessor of all Christian +powers works the entire sum of all charismatic gifts in all who are gifted</q> (Meyer in +<hi rend='italic'>loco</hi>). +</p> + +<pb n='316'/><anchor id='Pg316'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Attributes of God.</hi> Life: <emph>Rom. 8:2—<q>Spirit of life.</q></emph> Truth: <emph>John 16:13 <q>Spirit of truth.</q></emph> Love: +<emph>Rom. 15:30—<q>love of the Spirit.</q></emph> Holiness: <emph>Eph. 4:30—<q>the Holy Spirit of God.</q></emph> Eternity: <emph>Heb. 9:14—<q>the +eternal Spirit.</q></emph> Omnipresence: <emph>Ps. 139:7—<q>Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?</q></emph> Omniscience: +<emph>1 Cor. 12:11—<q rend='pre'>all these</q></emph> [including gifts of healings and miracles] <emph><q rend='post'>worketh the one and the same +Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Works of God.</hi> Creation: <emph>Gen. 1:2</emph>, marg.—<emph><q>Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters.</q></emph> +Casting out of demons: <emph>Mat. 12:28—<q>But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons.</q></emph> Conviction of +sin: <emph>John 16:8—<q>convict the world in respect of sin.</q></emph> Regeneration: <emph>John 3:8—<q>born of the Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>Tit. +3:5—<q>renewing of the Holy Spirit.</q></emph> Resurrection: <emph>Rom. 8:11—<q>give life also to your mortal bodies through +his Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 15:45—<q>The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Honor due to God.</hi> <emph>1 Cor. 3:16—<q>ye are a temple of God ... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you</q></emph>—he +who inhabits the temple is the object of worship there. See also the next item. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <hi rend='italic'>Associated with God.</hi> Formula of baptism: <emph>Mat. 28:19—<q>baptizing them into the name of the +Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.</q></emph> If the baptismal formula is worship, then we have here +worship paid to the Spirit. Apostolic benedictions: <emph>2 Cor. 13:14—<q>The grace of the Lord Jesus +Christ and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.</q></emph> If the apostolic benedictions +are prayers, then we have here a prayer to the Spirit. <emph>1 Pet. 1:2—<q>foreknowledge of +God the Father ... sanctification of the Spirit ... sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +On <emph>Heb. 9:14</emph>, Kendrick, Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>, interprets: <q>Offers himself by virtue of an +eternal spirit which dwells within him and imparts to his sacrifice a spiritual and an +eternal efficacy. The <q>spirit</q> here spoken of was not, then, the <q>Holy Spirit</q>; it was not +his purely divine nature; it was that blending of his divine nature with his human personality +which forms the mystery of his being, that <emph><q>spirit of holiness</q></emph> by virtue of which +he was declared <q><emph>the Son of God with power</emph>,</q> on account of his resurrection from the +dead.</q> Hovey adds a note to Kendrick's Commentary, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>, as follows: <q>This +adjective <q><emph>eternal</emph></q> naturally suggests that the word <q><emph>Spirit</emph></q> refers to the higher and +divine nature of Christ. His truly human nature, on its spiritual side, was indeed +eternal as to the future, but so also is the spirit of every man. The unique and superlative +value of Christ's self-sacrifice seems to have been due to the impulse of the +divine side of his nature.</q> The phrase <emph><q>eternal spirit</q></emph> would then mean his divinity. To +both these interpretations we prefer that which makes the passage refer to the Holy +Spirit, and we cite in support of this view <emph>Acts 1:2—<q>he had given commandment through the Holy +Spirit unto the apostles</q></emph>; <emph>10:38—<q>God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.</q></emph> On <emph>1 Cor. 2:10</emph>, Mason, Faith of +the Gospel, 63, remarks: <q>The Spirit of God finds nothing even in God which baffles +his scrutiny. His <emph><q>search</q></emph> is not a seeking for knowledge yet beyond him.... Nothing +but God could search the depths of God.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +As spirit is nothing less than the inmost principle of life, and the spirit +of man is man himself, so the spirit of God must be God (see 1 Cor. 2:11—Meyer). +Christian experience, moreover, expressed as it is in the +prayers and hymns of the church, furnishes an argument for the deity of +the Holy Spirit similar to that for the deity of Jesus Christ. When our +eyes are opened to see Christ as a Savior, we are compelled to recognize +the work in us of a divine Spirit who has taken of the things of Christ and +has shown them to us; and this divine Spirit we necessarily distinguish +both from the Father and from the Son. Christian experience, however, +is not an original and independent witness to the deity of the Holy Spirit: +it simply shows what the church has held to be the natural and unforced +interpretation of the Scriptures, and so confirms the Scripture argument +already adduced. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Holy Spirit is God himself personally present in the believer. E. G. Robinson: +<q>If <q>Spirit of God</q> no more implies deity than does <q>angel of God,</q> why is not the +Holy Spirit called simply the angel or messenger, of God?</q> Walker, The Spirit and +the Incarnation, 337—<q>The Holy Spirit is God in his innermost being or essence, +the principle of life of both the Father and the Son; that in which God, both as Father +and Son, does everything, and in which he comes to us and is in us increasingly +through his manifestations. Through the working and indwelling of this Holy Spirit, +God in his person of Son was fully incarnate in Christ.</q> Gould, Am. Com. on <emph>1 Cor. 2:11</emph>—<emph><q>For +who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of +<pb n='317'/><anchor id='Pg317'/> +God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God</q></emph>—<q>The analogy must not be pushed too far, as if the +Spirit of God and God were coëxtensive terms, as the corresponding terms are, substantially, +in man. The point of the analogy is evidently <emph>self-knowledge</emph>, and in both +cases the contrast is between the spirit within and anything outside.</q> Andrew Murray, +Spirit of Christ, 140—<q>We must not expect always to feel the power of the Spirit +when it works. Scripture links power and weakness in a wonderful way, not as succeeding +each other but as existing together. <emph><q>I was with you in weakness ... my preaching was in +power</q> (1 Cor. 2:3)</emph>; <emph><q>when I am weak then am I strong</q> (2 Cor. 12:10)</emph>. The power is the power of God +given to faith, and faith grows strong in the dark.... He who would command nature +must first and most absolutely obey her.... We want to get possession of the Power, +and use it. God wants the Power to get possession of us, and use us.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +This proof of the deity of the Holy Spirit is not invalidated by the limitations +of his work under the Old Testament dispensation. John 7:39—<q>for +the Holy Spirit was not yet</q>—means simply that the Holy Spirit +could not fulfill his peculiar office as Revealer of Christ until the atoning +work of Christ should be accomplished. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>John 7:39</emph> is to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures which assert the agency +of the Holy Spirit under the old dispensation (<emph>Ps. 51:11—<q>take not thy holy Spirit from me</q></emph>) +and which describe his peculiar office under the new dispensation (<emph>John 16:14, 15—<q>he +shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you</q></emph>). Limitation in the <emph>manner</emph> of the Spirit's work +in the O. T. involved a limitation in the <emph>extent</emph> and <emph>power</emph> of it also. Pentecost was the +flowing forth of a tide of spiritual influence which had hitherto been dammed up. +Henceforth the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of Jesus Christ, taking of the things of Christ +and showing them, applying his finished work to human hearts, and rendering the +hitherto localized Savior omnipresent with his scattered followers to the end of time. +</p> + +<p> +Under the conditions of his humiliation, Christ was a servant. All authority in +heaven and earth was given him only after his resurrection. Hence he could not send +the Holy Spirit until he ascended. The mother can show off her son only when he is +fully grown. The Holy Spirit could reveal Christ only when there was a complete +Christ to reveal. The Holy Spirit could fully sanctify, only after the example and +motive of holiness were furnished in Christ's life and death. Archer Butler: <q>The +divine Artist could not fitly descend to make the copy, before the original had been +provided.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And yet the Holy Spirit is <emph><q>the eternal Spirit</q> (Heb. 9:14)</emph>, and he not only existed, but also +wrought, in Old Testament times. <emph>2 Pet. 1:21—<q>men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph>—seems +to fix the meaning of the phrase <q>the Holy Spirit,</q> where it appears in the +O. T. Before Christ <emph><q>the Holy Spirit was not yet</q> (John 7:39)</emph>, just as before Edison electricity +was not yet. There was just as much electricity in the world before Edison as there is +now. Edison has only taught us its existence and how to use it. Still we can say that, +before Edison, electricity, as a means of lighting, warming and transporting people, had +no existence. So until Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, as the revealer of Christ, <q><emph>was not yet</emph>.</q> +Augustine calls Pentecost the <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>dies natalis</foreign>, or birthday, of the Holy Spirit; and for the +same reason that we call the day when Mary brought forth her firstborn son the birthday +of Jesus Christ, though before Abraham was born, Christ was. The Holy Spirit had been +engaged in the creation, and had inspired the prophets, but <emph>officially</emph>, as Mediator +between men and Christ, <q><emph>the Holy Spirit was not yet</emph>.</q> He could not show the things of Christ +until the things of Christ were ready to be shown. See Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, +19-25; Prof. J. S. Gubelmann, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in O. T. Times. +For proofs of the deity of the Holy Spirit, see Walker, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; +Hare, Mission of the Comforter; Parker, The Paraclete; Cardinal Manning, Temporal +Mission of the Holy Ghost; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350. Further references +will be given in connection with the proof of the Holy Spirit's personality. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Intimations of the Old Testament.</head> + +<p> +The passages which seem to show that even in the Old Testament there +are three who are implicitly recognized as God may be classed under four +heads: +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>A. Passages which seem to teach plurality of some sort in the Godhead.</head> + +<pb n='318'/><anchor id='Pg318'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The plural noun אלהים is employed, and that with a plural verb—a +use remarkable, when we consider that the singular אל was also in existence; +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) God uses plural pronouns in speaking of himself; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Jehovah +distinguishes himself from Jehovah; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) a Son is ascribed to Jehovah; +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) the Spirit of God is distinguished from God; (<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) there are a threefold +ascription and a threefold benediction. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Gen. 20:13—<q rend='pre'>God caused</q></emph> [plural] <emph><q rend='post'>me to wander from my father's house</q></emph>; <emph>35:7—<q rend='pre'>built there an altar, +and called the place El-Beth-el</q></emph>; <emph>because there God was revealed</emph> [plural] <emph><q rend='post'>unto him.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Gen. 1:26—<q>Let us make +man in our image, after our likeness</q></emph>; <emph>3:22—<q>Behold, the man is become as one of us</q></emph>; <emph>11:7—<q>Come, let us go +down, and there confound their language</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 6:8—<q>Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>Gen. 19:24—<q>Then +Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven</q></emph>; <emph>Hos. 1:7—<q>I +will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah, their God</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>2 Tim. 1:18—<q>The Lord +grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day</q></emph>—though Ellicott here decides adversely to the +Trinitarian reference. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <emph>Ps. 2:7—<q>Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee</q></emph>; <emph>Prov. 30:4—<q>Who +hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?</q></emph> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <emph>Gen. 1:1 and 2, marg.—<q>God created ... the Spirit of God was brooding</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 33:6—<q rend='pre'>By the word of +Jehovah were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath</q></emph> [spirit] <emph><q rend='post'>of his mouth</q></emph>; <emph>Is. 48:16—<q>the +Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>63:7, 10—<q>loving kindnesses of Jehovah ... grieved his holy Spirit.</q></emph> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) <emph>Is. 6:3</emph>—the trisagion: <q><emph>Holy, holy, holy</emph></q>; <emph>Num. 6:24-26—<q>Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah +make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +It has been suggested that as Baal was worshiped in different places and under different +names, as Baal-Berith, Baal-hanan, Baal-peor, Baal-zeebub, and his priests could +call upon any one of these as possessing certain personified attributes of Baal, while +yet the whole was called by the plural term <q>Baalim,</q> and Elijah could say: <q>Call ye +upon your Gods,</q> so <q>Elohim</q> may be the collective designation of the God who was +worshiped in different localities; see Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish +Church, 229. But this ignores the fact that Baal is always addressed in the singular, never +in the plural, while the plural <q>Elohim</q> is the term commonly used in addresses to God. +This seems to show that <q>Baalim</q> is a collective term, while <q>Elohim</q> is not. So when +Ewald, Lehre von Gott, 2:333, distinguishes five names of God, corresponding to five +great periods of the history of Israel, <hi rend='italic'>viz.</hi>, the <q>Almighty</q> of the Patriarchs, the +<q>Jehovah</q> of the Covenant, the <q>God of Hosts</q> of the Monarchy, the <q>Holy One</q> +of the Deuteronomist and the later prophetic age, and the <q>Our Lord</q> of Judaism, he +ignores the fact that these designations are none of them confined to the times to which +they are attributed, though they may have been predominantly used in those times. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The fact that אלהים is sometimes used in a narrower sense, as applicable +to the Son (Ps. 45:6; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> Heb. 1:8), need not prevent us from believing +that the term was originally chosen as containing an allusion to a certain +plurality in the divine nature. Nor is it sufficient to call this plural a +simple <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>pluralis majestaticus</foreign>; since it is easier to derive this common +figure from divine usage than to derive the divine usage from this common +figure—especially when we consider the constant tendency of Israel to +polytheism. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 45:6</emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Heb. 1:8—<q>of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.</q></emph> Here it is God who +calls Christ <q><emph>God</emph></q> or <q><emph>Elohim</emph>.</q> The term Elohim has here acquired the significance of a +singular. It was once thought that the royal style of speech was a custom of a later +date than the time of Moses. Pharaoh does not use it. In <emph>Gen. 41:41-44</emph>, he says: <emph><q>I have +set thee over all the land of Egypt ... I am Pharaoh.</q></emph> But later investigations seem to prove that +the plural for God was used by the Canaanites before the Hebrew occupation. The +one Pharaoh is called <q>my gods</q> or <q>my god,</q> indifferently. The word <q>master</q> is +usually found in the plural in the O. T. (<hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Gen. 24:9, 51</emph>; <emph>39:19</emph>; <emph>40:1</emph>). The plural gives +utterance to the sense of awe. It signifies magnitude or completeness. (See The Bible +Student, Aug. 1900:67.) +</p> + +<p> +This ancient Hebrew application of the plural to God is often explained as a mere +plural of dignity, = one who combines in himself many reasons for adoration (אלהים +from אלה to fear, to adore). Oehler, O. T. Theology, 1:128-130, calls it a <q>quantitative +plural,</q> signifying unlimited greatness. The Hebrews had many plural forms, where +<pb n='319'/><anchor id='Pg319'/> +we should use the singular, as <q>heavens</q> instead of <q>heaven,</q> <q>waters</q> instead of +<q>water.</q> We too speak of <q>news,</q> <q>wages,</q> and say <q>you</q> instead of <q>thou</q>; see F. W. +Robertson, on Genesis, 12. But the Church Fathers, such as Barnabas, Justin Martyr, +Irenæus, Theophilus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, saw in this plural an allusion to the +Trinity, and we are inclined to follow them. When finite things were pluralized to +express man's reverence, it would be far more natural to pluralize the name of God. +And God's purpose in securing this pluralization may have been more far-reaching +and intelligent than man's. The Holy Spirit who presided over the development of +revelation may well have directed the use of the plural in general, and even the adoption +of the plural name Elohim in particular, with a view to the future unfolding of +truth with regard to the Trinity. +</p> + +<p> +We therefore dissent from the view of Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 323, 330—<q>The +Hebrew religion, even much later than the time of Moses, as it existed in the popular +mind, was, according to the prophetic writings, far removed from a real monotheism, +and consisted in the wavering acceptance of the preëminence of a tribal God, with a +strong inclination towards a general polytheism. It is impossible therefore to suppose +that anything approaching the philosophical monotheism of modern theology could +have been elaborated or even entertained by primitive man.... <emph><q>Thou shalt have no other +gods before me</q> (Ex. 20:3)</emph>, the first precept of Hebrew monotheism, was not understood at +first as a denial of the hereditary polytheistic faith, but merely as an exclusive claim +to worship and obedience.</q> E. G. Robinson says, in a similar strain, that <q>we can +explain the idolatrous tendencies of the Jews only on the supposition that they had +lurking notions that their God was a merely national god. Moses seems to have understood +the doctrine of the divine unity, but the Jews did not.</q> +</p> + +<p> +To the views of both Hill and Robinson we reply that the primitive intuition of God +is not that of many, but that of One. Paul tells us that polytheism is a later and retrogressive +stage of development, due to man's sin (<emph>Rom. 1:19-25</emph>). We prefer the statement +of McLaren: <q>The plural Elohim is not a survival from a polytheistic stage, but +expresses the divine nature in the manifoldness of its fulnesses and perfections, rather +than in the abstract unity of its being</q>—and, we may add, expresses the divine nature +in its essential fulness, as a complex of personalities. See Conant, Gesenius' Hebrew +Grammar, 108; Green, Hebrew Grammar, 306; Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms, 38, 53; +Alexander on <emph>Psalm 11:7</emph>; <emph>29:1</emph>; <emph>58:11</emph>. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>B. Passages relating to the Angel of Jehovah.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The angel of Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) he is +identified with Jehovah by others; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) he accepts worship due only to +God. Though the phrase <q>angel of Jehovah</q> is sometimes used in the +later Scriptures to denote a merely human messenger or created angel, it +seems in the Old Testament, with hardly more than a single exception, to +designate the pre-incarnate Logos, whose manifestations in angelic or +human form foreshadowed his final coming in the flesh. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Gen. 22:11, 16—<q rend='pre'>the angel of Jehovah called unto him</q></emph> [Abraham, when about to sacrifice Isaac] +... <emph><q rend='post'>By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah</q></emph>; <emph>31:11, 13—<q rend='pre'>the angel of God said unto me</q></emph> [Jacob] ... <emph><q rend='post'>I am the +God of Beth-el.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Gen. 16:9, 13—<q>angel of Jehovah said unto her ... and she called the name of Jehovah that +spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth</q></emph>; <emph>48:15, 16—<q>the God who hath fed me ... the angel who hath redeemed +me.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>Ex. 3:2, 4, 5—<q>the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him ... God called unto him out of the midst of the +bush ... put off thy shoes from off thy feet</q></emph>; <emph>Judges 13:20-22—<q>angel of Jehovah ascended.... Manoah and his +wife ... fell on their faces ... Manoah said ... We shall surely die, because we have seen God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +The <q><emph>angel of the Lord</emph></q> appears to be a human messenger in <emph>Haggai 1:13—<q>Haggai, Jehovah's messenger</q></emph>; +a created angel in <emph>Mat. 1:20—<q rend='pre'>an angel of the Lord</q></emph> [called Gabriel] <emph><q rend='post'>appeared unto</q></emph> Joseph; +in <emph>Acts 3:26—<q>an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip</q></emph>; and in <emph>12:7—<q>an angel of the Lord stood by him</q></emph> +(Peter). But commonly, in the O.T., the <emph><q>angel of Jehovah</q></emph> is a theophany, a self-manifestation +of God. The only distinction is that between Jehovah in himself and Jehovah +in manifestation. The appearances of <q><emph>the angel of Jehovah</emph></q> seem to be preliminary manifestations +of the divine Logos, as in <emph>Gen. 18:2, 13—<q rend='pre'>three men stood over against him</q></emph> [Abraham] +... <emph><q rend='post'>And Jehovah said unto Abraham</q></emph>; <emph>Dan. 3:25, 28—<q>the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.... Blessed be +the God ... who hath sent his angel.</q></emph> The N.T. <q><emph>angel of the Lord</emph></q> does not permit, the O.T. <q><emph>angel +of the Lord</emph></q> requires, worship (<emph>Rev. 22:8, 9—<q>See thou do it not</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Ex. 3:5—<q>put off thy shoes</q></emph>). As +supporting this interpretation, see Hengstenberg, Christology, 1:107-123; J. Pye Smith, +<pb n='320'/><anchor id='Pg320'/> +Scripture Testimony to the Messiah. As opposing it, see Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:329, +378; Kurtz, History of Old Covenant, 1:181. On the whole subject, see Bib. Sac., +1879:593-615. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>C. Descriptions of the divine Wisdom and Word.</head> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Wisdom is represented as distinct from God, and as eternally existing +with God; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the Word of God is distinguished from God, as executor +of his will from everlasting. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Prov. 8:1—<q>Doth not wisdom cry?</q></emph> <hi rend='italic'>Cf.</hi> <emph>Mat. 11:19—<q>wisdom is justified by her works</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 7:35—<q>wisdom +is justified of all her children</q></emph>; <emph>11:49—<q>Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets +and apostles</q></emph>; <emph>Prov. 8:22, 30, 31—<q>Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old.... I +was by him, as a master workman: And I was daily his delight.... And my delight was with the sons of men</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>3:19—<q>Jehovah +by wisdom founded the earth,</q></emph> and <emph>Heb. 1:2—<q>his Son ... through whom ... he made the +worlds.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Ps. 107:20—<q>He sendeth his word, and healeth them</q></emph>; <emph>119:89—<q>For ever, O Jehovah, Thy word is +settled in heaven</q></emph>; <emph>147:15-18—<q>He sendeth out his commandment.... He sendeth out his word.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +In the Apocryphal book entitled Wisdom, 7:26, 28, wisdom is described as <q>the +brightness of the eternal light,</q> <q>the unspotted mirror of God's majesty,</q> and <q>the +image of his goodness</q>—reminding us of <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q>the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of +his substance.</q></emph> In Wisdom, 9:9, 10, wisdom is represented as being present with God when +he made the world, and the author of the book prays that wisdom may be sent to him +out of God's holy heavens and from the throne of his glory. In 1 Esdras 4:35-38, Truth +in a similar way is spoken of as personal: <q>Great is the Truth and stronger than all +things. All the earth calleth upon the Truth, and the heaven blesseth it; all works +shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. As for the Truth, it +endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth forevermore.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +It must be acknowledged that in none of these descriptions is the idea of +personality clearly developed. Still less is it true that John the apostle +derived his doctrine of the Logos from the interpretations of these descriptions +in Philo Judæus. John's doctrine (John 1:1-18) is radically different +from the Alexandrian Logos-idea of Philo. This last is a Platonizing +speculation upon the mediating principle between God and the world. +Philo seems at times to verge towards a recognition of personality in the +Logos, though his monotheistic scruples lead him at other times to take +back what he has given, and to describe the Logos either as the thought of +God or as its expression in the world. But John is the first to present +to us a consistent view of this personality, to identify the Logos with the +Messiah, and to distinguish the Word from the Spirit of God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Dorner, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1:13-45, and in his +System of Doctrine, 1:348, 349, gives the best account of Philo's doctrine of the Logos. +He says that Philo calls the Logos ἀρχάγγελος, ἀρχιερεύς, δεύτερος θεός. Whether this is +anything more than personification is doubtful, for Philo also calls the Logos the κόσμος +νοητός. Certainly, so far as he makes the Logos a distinct personality, he makes him +also a subordinate being. It is charged that the doctrine of the Trinity owes its origin +to the Platonic philosophy in its Alexandrian union with Jewish theology. But Platonism +had no Trinity. The truth is that by the doctrine of the Trinity Christianity +secured itself against false heathen ideas of God's multiplicity and immanence, as +well as against false Jewish ideas of God's unity and transcendence. It owes nothing +to foreign sources. +</p> + +<p> +We need not assign to John's gospel a later origin, in order to account for its doctrine +of the Logos, any more than we need to assign a later origin to the Synoptics in order to +account for their doctrine of a suffering Messiah. Both doctrines were equally +unknown to Philo. Philo's Logos does not and cannot become man. So says Dorner. +Westcott, in Bible Commentary on John, Introd., xv-xviii, and on John 1:1—<q>The theological +use of the term [in John's gospel] appears to be derived directly from the +Palestinian <foreign rend='italic'>Memra</foreign>, and not from the Alexandrian <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>Logos</foreign>.</q> Instead of Philo's doctrine +being a stepping-stone from Judaism to Christianity, it was a stumbling-stone. It had +<pb n='321'/><anchor id='Pg321'/> +no doctrine of the Messiah or of the atonement. Bennett and Adeny, Bib. Introd., 340—<q>The +difference between Philo and John may be stated thus: Philo's Logos is Reason, +while John's is Word; Philo's is impersonal, while John's is personal; Philo's is not +incarnate, while John's is incarnate; Philo's is not the Messiah, while John's is the +Messiah.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Philo lived from B. C. 10 or 20 to certainly A. D. 40, when he went at the head of a +Jewish embassy to Rome, to persuade the Emperor to abstain from claiming divine +honor from the Jews. In his De Opifice Mundi he says: <q>The Word is nothing else but +the intelligible world.</q> He calls the Word the <q>chainband,</q> <q>pilot,</q> <q>steersman,</q> of +all things. Gore, Incarnation, 69—<q>Logos in Philo must be translated <q>Reason.</q> +But in the Targums, or early Jewish paraphrases of the O. T., the <q>Word</q> of Jehovah +(<foreign rend='italic'>Memra</foreign>, <foreign rend='italic'>Devra</foreign>) is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of the divine +action, in cases where the O. T. speaks of Jehovah himself, <q>The Word of God</q> had +come to be used personally, as almost equivalent to God manifesting himself, or God +in action.</q> George H. Gilbert, in Biblical World, Jan. 1899:44—<q>John's use of the +term Logos was suggested by Greek philosophy, while at the same time the content of +the word is Jewish.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 174-208—<q>The Stoics invested the Logos with personality. +They were Monists and they made λόγος and ὕλη the active and the passive forms of the +one principle. Some made God a mode of matter—<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura naturata</foreign>; others made matter +a mode of God—<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura naturans</foreign> = the world a self-evolution of God. The Platonic +forms, as manifold expressions of a single λόγος, were expressed by a singular term, +Logos, rather than the Logoi, of God. From this Logos proceed all forms of mind or +reason. So held Philo: <q>The mind is an offshoot from the divine and happy soul (of +God), an offshoot not separated from him, for nothing divine is cut off and disjoined, +but only extended.</q> Philo's Logos is not only form but force—God's creative energy—the +eldest-born of the <q>I am,</q> which robes itself with the world as with a vesture, the +high priest's robe, embroidered with all the forces of the seen and unseen worlds.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:53—<q>Philo carries the transcendence of God to its +logical conclusions. The Jewish doctrine of angels is expanded in his doctrine of the +Logos. The Alexandrian philosophers afterwards represented Christianity as a spiritualized +Judaism. But a philosophical system dominated by the idea of the divine transcendence +never could have furnished a motive for missionary labors like those of Paul. +Philo's belief in transcendence abated his redemptive hopes. But, conversely, the +redemptive hopes of orthodox Judaism saved it from some of the errors of exclusive +transcendence.</q> See a quotation from Siegfried, in Schürer's History of the Jewish +People, article on Philo: <q>Philo's doctrine grew out of God's distinction and distance +from the world. It was dualistic. Hence the need of mediating principles, some +being less than God and more than creature. The cosmical significance of Christ +bridged the gulf between Christianity and contemporary Greek thought. Christianity +stands for a God who is revealed. But a Logos-doctrine like that of Philo may +reveal less than it conceals. Instead of God incarnate for our salvation, we may +have merely a mediating principle between God and the world, as in Arianism.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The preceding statement is furnished in substance by Prof. William Adams Brown. +With it we agree, adding only the remark that the Alexandrian philosophy gave to +Christianity, not the substance of its doctrine, but only the terminology for its expression. +The truth which Philo groped after, the Apostle John seized and published, as +only he could, who had heard, seen, and handled <emph><q>the Word of life</q> (1 John 1:1).</emph> <q>The Christian +doctrine of the Logos was perhaps before anything else an effort to express how +Jesus Christ was God (Θεός), and yet in another sense was not God (ὁ θεός); that is to +say, was not the whole Godhead</q> (quoted in Marcus Dods, Expositors' Bible, on <emph>John 1:1</emph>). +See also Kendrick, in Christian Review, 26:369-399; Gloag, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., +1891:45-57; Réville, Doctrine of the Logos in John and Philo; Godet on John, Germ. +transl., 13, 135; Cudworth, Intellectual System, 2:320-333; Pressensé, Life of Jesus +Christ, 83; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:114-117; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 59-71; +Conant on Proverbs, 53. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>D. Descriptions of the Messiah.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) He is one with Jehovah; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) yet he is in some sense distinct from +Jehovah. +</p> + +<pb n='322'/><anchor id='Pg322'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Is. 9:6—<q>unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ... and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, +Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace</q></emph>; <emph>Micah 5:2—<q>thou Bethlehem ... which art little ... out of thee +shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Ps. 45:6, 7—<q>Thy +throne, O God, is for ever and ever.... Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee</q></emph>; <emph>Mal 3:1—<q>I send my +messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the +messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire.</q></emph> Henderson, in his Commentary on this passage, points +out that the Messiah is here called <q><emph>the Lord</emph></q> or <q><emph>the Sovereign</emph></q>—a title nowhere given in +this form (with the article) to any but Jehovah; that he is predicted as coming to the +temple as its proprietor; and that he is identified with the angel of the covenant, elsewhere +shown to be one with Jehovah himself. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +It is to be remembered, in considering this, as well as other classes of +passages previously cited, that no Jewish writer before Christ's coming had +succeeded in constructing from them a doctrine of the Trinity. Only to +those who bring to them the light of New Testament revelation do they +show their real meaning. +</p> + +<p> +Our general conclusion with regard to the Old Testament intimations +must therefore be that, while they do not by themselves furnish a sufficient +basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, they contain the germ of it, and may +be used in confirmation of it when its truth is substantially proved from +the New Testament. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +That the doctrine of the Trinity is not plainly taught in the Hebrew Scriptures is +evident from the fact that Jews unite with Mohammedans in accusing trinitarians of +polytheism. It should not surprise us that the Old Testament teaching on this subject +is undeveloped and obscure. The first necessity was that the Unity of God should be +insisted on. Until the danger of idolatry was past, a clear revelation of the Trinity +might have been a hindrance to religious progress. The child now, like the race then, +must learn the unity of God before it can profitably be taught the Trinity,—else it will +fall into tritheism; see Gardiner, O. T. and N. T., 49. We should not therefore begin +our proof of the Trinity with a reference to passages in the Old Testament. We should +speak of these passages, indeed, as furnishing intimations of the doctrine rather than +proof of it. Yet, after having found proof of the doctrine in the New Testament, we +may expect to find traces of it in the Old which will corroborate our conclusions. As a +matter of fact, we shall see that traces of the idea of a Trinity are found not only in the +Hebrew Scriptures but in some of the heathen religions as well. E. G. Robinson: <q>The +doctrine of the Trinity underlay the O. T., unperceived by its writers, was first recognized +in the economic revelation of Christianity, and was first clearly enunciated in the +necessary evolution of Christian doctrine.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. These Three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled +to conceive of them as distinct Persons.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from each other.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Christ distinguishes the Father from himself as <q>another</q>; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the +Father and the Son are distinguished as the begetter and the begotten; +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the Father and the Son are distinguished as the sender and the sent. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>John 5:32, 37—<q>It is another that beareth witness of me ... the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness +of me.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Ps. 2:7—<q>Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee</q></emph>; <emph>John 1:14—<q>the only begotten from the +Father</q></emph>; <emph>18—<q>the only begotten Son</q></emph>; <emph>3:16—<q>gave his only begotten Son.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>John 10:36—<q>say ye of him, +whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?</q></emph>; <emph>Gal 4:4—<q>when +the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son.</q></emph> In these passages the Father is represented +as objective to the Son, the Son to the Father, and both the Father and Son to the Spirit. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from the Spirit.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Jesus distinguishes the Spirit from himself and from the Father; +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the Spirit proceeds from the Father; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the Spirit is sent by the +Father and by the Son. +</p> + +<pb n='323'/><anchor id='Pg323'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>John 14:16, 17—<q>I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for +ever, even the Spirit of truth</q></emph>—or <q><emph>Spirit of the truth</emph>,</q> = he whose work it is to reveal and apply the +truth, and especially to make manifest him who is the truth. Jesus had been their +Comforter: he now promises them another Comforter. If he himself was a person, +then the Spirit is a person. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>John 15:26—<q>the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) +<emph>John 14:26—<q>the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name</q></emph>; <emph>15:26—<q>when the Comforter +is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father</q></emph>; <emph>Gal. 4:6—<q>God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our +hearts.</q></emph> The Greek church holds that the Spirit proceeds from the Father only; the +Latin church, that the Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son. The +true formula is: The Spirit proceeds from the Father <emph>through</emph> or <emph>by</emph> (not <q>and</q>) the +Son. See Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, 1:262, 263. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, +195—<q>The <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Filioque</foreign> is a valuable defence of the truth that the Holy Spirit is +not simply the abstract second Person of the Trinity, but rather the Spirit of the +incarnate Christ, reproducing Christ in human hearts, and revealing in them the meaning +of true manhood.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. The Holy Spirit is a person.</head> + +<p> +A. Designations proper to personality are given him. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The masculine pronoun ἐκεῖνος, though πνεῦμα is neuter; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the +name παράκλητος, which cannot be translated by <q>comfort</q>, or be taken as +the name of any abstract influence. The Comforter, Instructor, Patron, +Guide, Advocate, whom this term brings before us, must be a person. This +is evident from its application to Christ in 1 John 2:1—<q>we have an +Advocate—παράκλητον—with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>John 16:14—<q>He (ἐκεῖνος) shall glorify me</q></emph>; in <emph>Eph. 1:14</emph> also, some of the best authorities, +including Tischendorf (8th ed.), read ὄς, the masculine pronoun: <q><emph>who is an earnest of our +inheritance</emph>.</q> But in <emph>John 14:16-18</emph>, παράκλητος is followed by the neuters ὁ and αὐτό, because +πνεῦμα had intervened. Grammatical and not theological considerations controlled the +writer. See G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 189-217, especially on the distinction +between Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is another person than Christ, in +spite of Christ's saying of the coming of the Holy Spirit: <q><emph>I come unto you</emph>.</q> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>John 16:7—<q>if +I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.</q></emph> The word παράκλητος, as appears from <emph>1 John +2:1</emph>, quoted above, is a term of broader meaning than merely <emph><q>Comforter.</q></emph> The Holy +Spirit is, indeed, as has been said, <q>the mother-principle in the Godhead,</q> and <q><emph>as one +whom his mother comforteth</emph></q> so God by his Spirit comforts his children (<emph>Is. 66:13</emph>). But the Holy +Spirit is also an Advocate of God's claims in the soul, and of the soul's interests in +prayer (<emph>Rom. 8:26—<q>maketh intercession for us</q></emph>). He comforts not only by being our advocate, +but by being our instructor, patron, and guide; and all these ideas are found attaching +to the word παράκλητος in good Greek usage. The word indeed is a verbal adjective, +signifying <q>called to one's aid,</q> hence a <q>helper</q>; the idea of encouragement is included +in it, as well as those of comfort and of advocacy. See Westcott, Bible Com., on +<emph>John 14:16</emph>; Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, <hi rend='italic'>in voce</hi>. +</p> + +<p> +T. Dwight, in S. S. Times, on <emph>John 14:16</emph>—<q>The fundamental meaning of the word +παράκλητος, which is a verbal adjective, is <q>called to one's aid,</q> and thus, when used as +a noun, it conveys the idea of <q>helper.</q> This more general sense probably attaches +to its use in John's Gospel, while in the Epistle (<emph>1 John 2:1, 2</emph>) it conveys the idea of Jesus +acting as advocate on our behalf before God as a Judge.</q> So the Latin <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>advocatus</foreign> signifies +one <q>called to</q>—<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, called in to aid, counsel, plead. In this connection Jesus +says: <emph><q>I will not leave you orphans</q> (John 14:18)</emph>. Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, 228—<q>As +the orphaned family, in the day of the parent's death, need some friend who shall +lighten their sense of loss by his own presence with them, so the Holy Spirit is <q>called in</q> +to supply the present love and help which the Twelve are losing in the death of Jesus.</q> +A. A. Hodge, Pop. Lectures, 237—<q>The Roman <q>client,</q> the poor and dependent man, +called in his <q>patron</q> to help him in all his needs. The patron thought for, advised, +directed, supported, defended, supplied, restored, comforted his client in all his complications. +The client, though weak, with a powerful patron, was socially and politically +secure forever.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. His name is mentioned in immediate connection with other persons, +and in such a way as to imply his own personality. +</p> + +<pb n='324'/><anchor id='Pg324'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) In connection with Christians; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) in connection with Christ; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) +in connection with the Father and the Son. If the Father and the Son are +persons, the Spirit must be a person also. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Acts 15:28—<q>it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>John 16:14—<q>He shall glorify me: for he +shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>17:4—<q>I glorified thee on the earth.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>Mat. 28:29—<q>baptizing +them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 13:14—<q>the grace of the Lord Jesus +Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all</q></emph>; <emph>Jude 21—<q>praying in the Holy +Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.</q></emph> <emph>1 Pet. 1:1, 2—<q>elect ... +according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood +of Jesus Christ.</q></emph> Yet it is noticeable in all these passages that there is no obtrusion of +the Holy Spirit's personality, as if he desired to draw attention to himself. The Holy +Spirit shows, not himself, but Christ. Like John the Baptist, he is a mere voice, and +so is an example to Christian preachers, who are themselves <emph><q>made ... sufficient as ministers +... of the Spirit</q> (2 Cor. 3:6)</emph>. His leading is therefore often unperceived; he so joins himself +to us that we infer his presence only from the new and holy exercises of our own +minds; he continues to work in us even when his presence is ignored and his purity is +outraged by our sins. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. He performs acts proper to personality. +</p> + +<p> +That which searches, knows, speaks, testifies, reveals, convinces, commands, +strives, moves, helps, guides, creates, recreates, sanctifies, inspires, +makes intercession, orders the affairs of the church, performs miracles, +raises the dead—cannot be a mere power, influence, efflux, or attribute of +God, but must be a person. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 1:2</emph>, marg.—<q><emph>the Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters</emph></q>; <emph>6:3—<q>My Spirit shalt not strive +with man for ever</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 12:12—<q>the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say</q></emph>; <emph>John 3:8—<q>born +of the Spirit</q></emph>—here Bengel translates: <q><emph>the Spirit breathes where he wills, and thou hearest his +voice</emph></q>—see also Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 166; <emph>16:8—<q>convict the world in respect of sin, +and of righteousness, and of judgment</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 2:4—<q>the Spirit gave them utterance</q></emph>; <emph>8:29—<q>the Spirit said +unto Philip, Go near</q></emph>; <emph>10:19, 20—<q rend='pre'>the Spirit said unto him</q></emph> [Peter], <emph><q rend='post'>Behold, three men seek thee.... go with +them ... for I have sent them</q></emph>; <emph>13:2—<q>the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul</q></emph>; <emph>16:6, 7—<q>forbidden +of the Holy Spirit ... Spirit of Jesus suffered them not</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:11—<q>give life also to your mortal bodies +through his Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>26—<q>the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... maketh intercession for us</q></emph>; <emph>15:19—<q>in +the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 2:10, 11—<q>the Spirit searcheth all things.... +things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God</q></emph>; <emph>12:8-11</emph>—distributes spiritual gifts <emph><q>to each one +severally even as he will</q></emph>—here Meyer calls attention to the words <emph><q>as he will,</q></emph> as proving the +personality of the Spirit; <emph>2 Pet. 1:21—<q>men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>1 Pet. 1:2—<q>sanctification +of the Spirit.</q></emph> How can a person be given in various measures? We answer, +by being permitted to work in our behalf with various degrees of power. Dorner: +<q>To be power does not belong to the impersonal.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. He is affected as a person by the acts of others. +</p> + +<p> +That which can be resisted, grieved, vexed, blasphemed, must be a person; +for only a person can perceive insult and be offended. The blasphemy +against the Holy Ghost cannot be merely blasphemy against a +power or attribute of God, since in that case blasphemy against God would +be a less crime than blasphemy against his power. That against which +the unpardonable sin can be committed must be a person. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Is. 63:10—<q>they rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>Mat. 12:31—<q>Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven +unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 5:3, 4, 9—<q>lie to the Holy Ghost ... +thou hast not lied unto men but unto God.... agreed together to try the Spirit of the Lord</q></emph>; <emph>7:51—<q>ye do always +resist the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 4:30—<q>grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.</q></emph> Satan cannot be <q>grieved.</q> +Selfishness can be angered, but only love can be grieved. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit +is like blaspheming one's own mother. The passages just quoted show the Spirit's possession +of an emotional nature. Hence we read of <emph><q>the love of the Spirit</q> (Rom. 15:30)</emph>. The +unutterable sighings of the Christian in intercessory prayer (<emph>Rom. 8:26, 27</emph>) reveal the mind +of the Spirit, and show the infinite depths of feeling which are awakened in God's +<pb n='325'/><anchor id='Pg325'/> +heart by the sins and needs of men. These deep desires and emotions which are only +partially communicated to us, and which only God can understand, are conclusive +proof that the Holy Spirit is a person. They are only the overflow into us of the +infinite fountain of divine love to which the Holy Spirit unites us. +</p> + +<p> +As Christ in the garden <emph><q>began to be sorrowful and sore troubled</q> (Mat. 26:37)</emph>, so the Holy Spirit +is sorrowful and sore troubled at the ignoring, despising, resisting of his work, on the +part of those whom he is trying to rescue from sin and to lead out into the freedom +and joy of the Christian life. Luthardt, in S. S. Times, May 26, 1888—<q>Every sin can +be forgiven—even the sin against the Son of man—except the sin against the Holy +Spirit. The sin against the Son of man can be forgiven because he can be misconceived. +For he did not appear as that which he really was. Essence and appearance, truth and +reality, contradicted each other.</q> Hence Jesus could pray: <emph><q>Father, forgive them, for they know +not what they do</q> (Luke 23:34)</emph>. The office of the Holy Spirit, however, is to show to men +the nature of their conduct, and to sin against him is to sin against light and without +excuse. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 297-313. Salmond, in Expositor's Greek +Testament, on <emph>Eph. 4:30</emph>—<q>What love is in us points truly, though tremulously, to what +love is in God. But in us love, in proportion as it is true and sovereign, has both its +<emph>wrath-side</emph> and its <emph>grief-side</emph>; and so must it be with God, however difficult for us to +think it out.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +E. He manifests himself in visible form as distinct from the Father and +the Son, yet in direct connection with personal acts performed by them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 3:16, 17—<q>Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened +unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, +This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 3:21, 22—<q>Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, the +heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou +art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.</q></emph> Here are the prayer of Jesus, the approving voice +of the Father, and the Holy Spirit descending in visible form to anoint the Son of God +for his work. <q>I ad Jordanem, et videbis Trinitatem.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +F. This ascription to the Spirit of a personal subsistence distinct from +that of the Father and of the Son cannot be explained as personification; +for: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) This would be to interpret sober prose by the canons of poetry. +Such sustained personification is contrary to the genius of even Hebrew +poetry, in which Wisdom itself is most naturally interpreted as designating +a personal existence. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Such an interpretation would render a multitude +of passages either tautological, meaningless, or absurd,—as can be easily +seen by substituting for the name Holy Spirit the terms which are wrongly +held to be its equivalents; such as the power, or influence, or efflux, or +attribute of God. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It is contradicted, moreover, by all those passages +in which the Holy Spirit is distinguished from his own gifts. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Bible is not primarily a book of poetry, although there is poetry in it. It is +more properly a book of history and law. Even if the methods of allegory were used +by the Psalmists and the Prophets, we should not expect them largely to characterize +the Gospels and Epistles; <emph>1 Cor. 13:4—<q>Love suffereth long, and is kind</q></emph>—is a rare instance in +which Paul's style takes on the form of poetry. Yet it is the Gospels and Epistles +which most constantly represent the Holy Spirit as a person. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Acts 10:38—<q rend='pre'>God anointed +him</q></emph> [Jesus] <emph><q rend='post'>with the Holy Spirit and with power</q></emph> = anointed him with power and with power? <emph>Rom. +15:13—<q>abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit</q></emph> = in the power of the power of God? <emph>19—<q>in +the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit</q></emph> = in the power of the power of God? <emph>1 Cor. +2:4—<q>demonstration of the Spirit and of power</q></emph> = demonstration of power and of power? (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) +<emph>Luke 1:35—<q>the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee</q></emph>; <emph>4:14—<q>Jesus +returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 12:4, 8, 11</emph>—after mention of the gifts of the +Spirit, such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning of +spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, all these are traced to the Spirit who +bestows them: <q><emph>all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will</emph>.</q> +Here is not only giving, but giving discreetly, in the exercise of an independent will +such as belongs only to a person. <emph>Rom. 8:26—<q>the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us</q></emph>—must +be interpreted, if the Holy Spirit is not a person distinct from the Father, as meaning +that the Holy Spirit intercedes with himself. +</p> + +<pb n='326'/><anchor id='Pg326'/> + +<p> +<q>The personality of the Holy Spirit was virtually rejected by the Arians, as it has +since been by Schleiermacher, and it has been positively denied by the Socinians</q> +(E. G. Robinson). Gould, Bib. Theol. N. T., 83, 96—<q>The Twelve represent the Spirit +as sent by the Son, who has been exalted that he may send this new power out of the +heavens. Paul represents the Spirit as bringing to us the Christ. In the Spirit Christ +dwells in us. The Spirit is the historic Jesus translated into terms of universal Spirit. +Through the Spirit we are in Christ and Christ in us. The divine Indweller is to Paul +alternately Christ and the Spirit. The Spirit is the divine principle incarnate in Jesus +and explaining his preëxistence (<emph>2 Cor. 3:17, 18</emph>). Jesus was an incarnation of the Spirit +of God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +This seeming identification of the Spirit with Christ is to be explained upon the +ground that the divine essence is common to both and permits the Father to dwell in +and to work through the Son, and the Son to dwell in and to work through the Spirit. +It should not blind us to the equally patent Scriptural fact that there are personal +relations between Christ and the Holy Spirit, and work done by the latter in which +Christ is the object and not the subject; <emph>John 16:14—<q>He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, +and shall declare it unto you.</q></emph> The Holy Spirit is not some <emph>thing</emph>, but some <emph>one</emph>; not αὐτό, but +Αὐτός; Christ's <emph>alter ego</emph>, or other self. We should therefore make vivid our belief in +the personality of Christ and of the Holy Spirit by addressing each of them frequently +in the prayers we offer and in such hymns as <q>Jesus, lover of my soul,</q> and <q>Come, +Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove!</q> On the personality of the Holy Spirit, see John Owen, +in Works, 3:64-92; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. This Tripersonality of the Divine Nature is not merely +economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Scripture proof that these distinctions of personality are eternal.</head> + +<p> +We prove this (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) from those passages which speak of the existence of +the Word from eternity with the Father; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) from passages asserting or +implying Christ's preëxistence; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) from passages implying intercourse +between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world; +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) from passages asserting the creation of the world by Christ; (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) from +passages asserting or implying the eternity of the Holy Spirit. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>John 1:1, 2—<q>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Gen. +1:1—<q>In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth</q></emph>; <emph>Phil. 2:6—<q>existing in the form of God ... on an +equality with God.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>John 8:58—<q>before Abraham was born, I am</q></emph>; <emph>1:18—<q>the only begotten Son, who is in +the bosom of the Father</q></emph> (R. V.); <emph>Col. 1:15-17—<q>firstborn of all creation</q></emph> or <emph><q>before every creature ... he is +before all things.</q></emph> In these passages <q><emph>am</emph></q> and <q><emph>is</emph></q> indicate an eternal fact; the present +tense expresses permanent being. <emph>Rev. 22:13, 14—<q>I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the +beginning and the end.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>John 17:5—<q>Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had +with thee before the world was</q></emph>; <emph>24—<q>Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <emph>John 1:3—<q>All +things were made through him</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 8:6—<q>one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things</q></emph>; <emph>Col. 1:16—<q>all +things have been created through him and unto him</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 1:2—<q>through whom also he made the worlds</q></emph>; +<emph>10—<q>Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands.</q></emph> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) <emph>Gen. 1:2—<q>the Spirit of God was brooding</q></emph>—existed therefore before creation; <emph>Ps. 33:6—<q rend='pre'>by the +word of Jehovah were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath</q></emph> [Spirit] <emph><q rend='post'>of his mouth</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 9:14—<q>through +the eternal Spirit.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +With these passages before us, we must dissent from the statement of Dr. E. G. Robinson: +<q>About the ontologic Trinity we know absolutely nothing. The Trinity we can +contemplate is simply a revealed one, one of economic manifestations. We may <emph>suppose</emph> +that the ontologic underlies the economic.</q> Scripture compels us, in our judgment, +to go further than this, and to maintain that there are personal relations between the +Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit independently of creation and of time; in other +words we maintain that Scripture reveals to us a social Trinity and an intercourse of +love apart from and before the existence of the universe. Love before time implies +distinctions of personality before time. There are three eternal consciousnesses and +three eternal wills in the divine nature. We here state only the fact,—the explanation +of it, and its reconciliation with the fundamental unity of God is treated in our next +section. We now proceed to show that the two varying systems which ignore this tripersonality +are unscriptural and at the same time exposed to philosophical objection. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='327'/><anchor id='Pg327'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Errors refuted by the foregoing passages.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>A. The Sabellian.</head> + +<p> +Sabellius (of Ptolemais in Pentapolis, 250) held that Father, Son, and +Holy Spirit are mere developments or revelations to creatures, in time, +of the otherwise concealed Godhead—developments which, since creatures +will always exist, are not transitory, but which at the same time are not +eternal <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a parte ante</foreign>. God as united to the creation is Father; God as united +to Jesus Christ is Son; God as united to the church is Holy Spirit. The +Trinity of Sabellius is therefore an economic and not an immanent Trinity—a +Trinity of forms or manifestations, but not a necessary and eternal +Trinity in the divine nature. +</p> + +<p> +Some have interpreted Sabellius as denying that the Trinity is eternal <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a +parte post</foreign>, as well as <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>a parte ante</foreign>, and as holding that, when the purpose +of these temporary manifestations is accomplished, the Triad is resolved +into the Monad. This view easily merges in another, which makes the +persons of the Trinity mere names for the ever shifting phases of the +divine activity. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The best statement of the Sabellian doctrine, according to the interpretation first +mentioned, is that of Schleiermacher, translated with comments by Moses Stuart, in +Biblical Repository, 6:1-16. The one unchanging God is differently reflected from the +world on account of the world's different receptivities. Praxeas of Rome (200) +Noetus of Smyrna (230), and Beryl of Arabia (250) advocated substantially the same +views. They were called Monarchians (μόνη ἀρχή), because they believed not in the +Triad, but only in the Monad. They were called Patripassians, because they held that, +as Christ is only God in human form, and this God suffers, therefore the Father suffers. +Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica, xlii, suggests a connection between Sabellianism and +Emanationism. See this Compendium, on Theories which oppose Creation. +</p> + +<p> +A view similar to that of Sabellius was held by Horace Bushnell, in his God in Christ, +113-115, 130 sq., 172-175, and Christ in Theology, 119, 120—<q>Father, Son and Holy Spirit, +being incidental to the revelation of God, may be and probably are from eternity to +eternity, inasmuch as God may have revealed himself from eternity, and certainly will +reveal himself so long as there are minds to know him. It may be, in fact, the nature +of God to reveal himself, as truly as it is of the sun to shine or of living mind to think.</q> +He does not deny the immanent Trinity, but simply says we know nothing about it. +Yet a Trinity of Persons in the divine essence itself he called plain tritheism. He prefers +<q>instrumental Trinity</q> to <q>modal Trinity</q> as a designation of his doctrine. The difference +between Bushnell on the one hand, and Sabellius and Schleiermacher on the +other, seems then to be the following: Sabellius and Schleiermacher hold that the One +<emph>becomes</emph> three in the process of revelation, and the three are only <emph>media</emph> or <emph>modes</emph> of +revelation. Father, Son, and Spirit are mere names applied to these modes of the divine +action, there being no internal distinctions in the divine nature. This is modalism, or a +modal Trinity. Bushnell stands by the Trinity of revelation alone, and protests against +any constructive reasonings with regard to the immanent Trinity. Yet in his later +writings he reverts to Athanasius and speaks of God as eternally <q>threeing himself</q>; +see Fisher, Edwards on the Trinity, 73. +</p> + +<p> +Lyman Abbott, in The Outlook, proposes as illustration of the Trinity, 1. the artist +working on his pictures; 2. the same man teaching pupils how to paint; 3. the same +man entertaining his friends at home. He has not taken on these types of conduct. +They are not masks (<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>personæ</foreign>), nor offices, which he takes up and lays down. There is +a threefold <emph>nature</emph> in him: he is artist, teacher, friend. God is complex, and not simple. +I do not know him, till I know him in all these relations. Yet it is evident that Dr. +Abbott's view provides no basis for love or for society within the divine nature. The +three persons are but three successive aspects or activities of the one God. General +Grant, when in office, was but one person, even though he was a father, a President, +and a commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='328'/><anchor id='Pg328'/> + +<p> +It is evident that this theory, in whatever form it may be held, is far +from satisfying the demands of Scripture. Scripture speaks of the second +person of the Trinity as existing and acting before the birth of Jesus +Christ, and of the Holy Spirit as existing and acting before the formation +of the church. Both have a personal existence, eternal in the past as well +as in the future—which this theory expressly denies. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +A revelation that is not a self-revelation of God is not honest. Stuart: Since God +is revealed as three, he must be essentially or immanently three, back of revelation; +else the revelation would not be true. Dorner: A Trinity of revelation is a misrepresentation, +if there is not behind it a Trinity of nature. Twesten properly arrives at the +threeness by considering, not so much what is involved in the revelation of God to us, as +what is involved in the revelation of God to himself. The unscripturalness of the Sabellian +doctrine is plain, if we remember that upon this view the Three cannot exist at +once: when the Father says <emph><q>Thou art my beloved Son</q> (Luke 3:22)</emph>, he is simply speaking to +himself; when Christ sends the Holy Spirit, he only sends himself. <emph>John 1:1—<q>In the beginning +was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God</q></emph>—<q>sets aside the false notion that +the Word become <emph>personal</emph> first at the time of creation, or at the incarnation</q> (Westcott, +Bib. Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). +</p> + +<p> +Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 50, 51—<q>Sabellius claimed that the Unity became a Trinity +by expansion. Fatherhood began with the world. God is not eternally Father, nor +does he love eternally. We have only an impersonal, unintelligible God, who has +played upon us and confused our understanding by showing himself to us under three +disguises. Before creation there is no Fatherhood, even in germ.</q> +</p> + +<p> +According to Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:269, Origen held that the Godhead might +be represented by three concentric circles; the widest, embracing the whole being, is +that of the Father; the next, that of the Son, which extends to the rational creation; +and the narrowest is that of the Spirit, who rules in the holy men of the church. King, +Reconstruction of Theology, 192, 194—<q>To affirm social relations in the Godhead is to +assert absolute Tritheism.... Unitarianism emphasizes the humanity of Christ, to +preserve the unity of God; the true view emphasizes the divinity of Christ, to preserve +the unity.</q> +</p> + +<p> +L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 141, 287, says that New England Trinitarianism +is characterized by three things: 1. Sabellian Patripassianism; Christ is all the +Father there is, and the Holy Spirit is Christ's continued life; 2. Consubstantiality, or +community of essence, of God and man; unlike the essential difference between the +created and the uncreated which Platonic dualism maintained, this theory turns <emph>moral</emph> +likeness into <emph>essential</emph> likeness; 3. Philosophical monism, matter itself being but an +evolution of Spirit.... In the next form of the scientific doctrine of evolution, the +divineness of man becomes a vital truth, and out of it arises a Christology that removes +Jesus of Nazareth indeed out of the order of absolute Deity, but at the same time exalts +him to a place of moral eminence that is secure and supreme. +</p> + +<p> +Against this danger of regarding Christ as a merely economic and temporary manifestation +of God we can guard only by maintaining the Scriptural doctrine of an immanent +Trinity. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 86, 165—<q>We cannot incur any +Sabellian peril while we maintain—what is fatal to Sabellianism—that that which is +revealed within the divine Unity is not only a distinction of aspects or of names, but a +real reciprocity of mutual relation. One <q>aspect</q> cannot contemplate, or be loved by, +another.... Sabellianism degrades the persons of Deity into aspects. But there +can be no mutual relation between aspects. The heat and the light of flame cannot +severally contemplate and be in love with one another.</q> See Bushnell's doctrine +reviewed by Hodge, Essays and Reviews, 433-473. On the whole subject, see Dorner, +Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, 2:152-169; Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1:259; Baur, Lehre von +der Dreieinigkeit, 1:256-305; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk 1:83. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>B. The Arian.</head> + +<p> +Arius (of Alexandria; condemned by Council of Nice, 325) held that +the Father is the only divine being absolutely without beginning; the Son +and the Holy Spirit, through whom God creates and recreates, having been +<pb n='329'/><anchor id='Pg329'/> +themselves created out of nothing before the world was; and Christ being +called God, because he is next in rank to God, and is endowed by God +with divine power to create. +</p> + +<p> +The followers of Arius have differed as to the precise rank and claims of +Christ. While Socinus held with Arius that worship of Christ was obligatory, +the later Unitarians have perceived the impropriety of worshiping +even the highest of created beings, and have constantly tended to a view of +the Redeemer which regards him as a mere man, standing in a peculiarly +intimate relation to God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For statement of the Arian doctrine, see J. Freeman Clarke, Orthodoxy, Its Truths +and Errors. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Schäffer, in Bib. Sac., 21:1, article on Athanasius and the +Arian controversy. The so-called Athanasian Creed, which Athanasius never wrote, +is more properly designated as the <hi rend='italic'>Symbolum Quicumque</hi>. It has also been called, +though facetiously, <q>the Anathemasian Creed.</q> Yet no error in doctrine can be more +perilous or worthy of condemnation than the error of Arius (<emph>1 Cor. 16:22—<q>If any man +loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema</q></emph>; <emph>1 John 2:23—<q>Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father</q></emph>; +<emph>4:3—<q>every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist</q></emph>). It regards +Christ as called God only by courtesy, much as we give to a Lieutenant Governor the +title of Governor. Before the creation of the Son, the love of God, if there could be +love, was expended on himself. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism: <q>The Arian Christ is +nothing but a heathen idol, invented to maintain a heathenish Supreme in heathen isolation +from the world. The nearer the Son is pulled down towards man by the attenuation +of his Godhead, the more remote from man becomes the unshared Godhead of +the Father. You have an <foreign rend='italic'>Être Suprême</foreign> who is practically unapproachable, a mere One-and-all, +destitute of personality.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Gore, Incarnation, 90, 91, 110, shows the immense importance of the controversy +with regard to ὁμοούσιον and ὁμοιούσιον. Carlyle once sneered that <q>the Christian world +was torn in pieces over a diphthong.</q> But Carlyle afterwards came to see that Christianity +itself was at stake, and that it would have dwindled away to a legend, if the +Arians had won. Arius appealed chiefly to logic, not to Scripture. He claimed that a +Son must be younger than his Father. But he was asserting the principle of heathenism +and idolatry, in demanding worship for a creature. The Goths were easily converted +to Arianism. Christ was to them a hero-god, a demigod, and the later Goths could +worship Christ and heathen idols impartially. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +It is evident that the theory of Arius does not satisfy the demands of +Scripture. A created God, a God whose existence had a beginning and +therefore may come to an end, a God made of a substance which once was +not, and therefore a substance different from that of the Father, is not God, +but a finite creature. But the Scripture speaks of Christ as being in the +beginning God, with God, and equal with God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Luther, alluding to <emph>John 1:1</emph>, says: <q><emph><q>The Word was God</q></emph> is against Arius; <emph><q>the Word was with +God</q></emph> is against Sabellius.</q> The Racovian Catechism, Quaes. 183, 184, 211, 236, 237, 245, 246, +teaches that Christ is to be truly worshiped, and they are denied to be Christians who +refuse to adore him. Davidis was persecuted and died in prison for refusing to worship +Christ; and Socinus was charged, though probably unjustly, with having caused his +imprisonment. Bartholomew Legate, an Essexman and an Arian, was burned to death +at Smithfield, March 13, 1613. King James I asked him whether he did not pray to +Christ. Legate's answer was that <q>indeed he had prayed to Christ in the days of his +ignorance, but not for these last seven years</q>; which so shocked James that <q>he +spurned at him with his foot.</q> At the stake Legate still refused to recant, and so was +burned to ashes amid a vast conflux of people. The very next month another Arian +named Whiteman was burned at Burton-on-Trent. +</p> + +<p> +It required courage, even a generation later, for John Milton, in his Christian Doctrine, +to declare himself a high Arian. In that treatise he teaches that <q>the Son of God +did not exist from all eternity, is not coëval or coëssential or coëqual with the Father, +but came into existence by the will of God to be the next being to himself, the first-born +and best beloved, the Logos or Word through whom all creation should take its beginnings.</q> +<pb n='330'/><anchor id='Pg330'/> +So Milton regards the Holy Spirit as a created being, inferior to the Son and +possibly confined to our heavens and earth. Milton's Arianism, however, is characteristic +of his later, rather than his earlier, writings; compare the Ode on Christ's Nativity +with Paradise Lost, 3:383-391; and see Masson's Life of Milton, 1:39; 6:823, 824; A. H. +Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 260-262. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Samuel Clarke, when asked whether the Father who had created could not also +destroy the Son, said that he had not considered the question. Ralph Waldo Emerson +broke with his church and left the ministry because he could not celebrate the Lord's +Supper,—it implied a profounder reverence for Jesus than he could give him. He +wrote: <q>It seemed to me at church to-day, that the Communion Service, as it is now +and here celebrated, is a document of the dullness of the race. How these, my good +neighbors, the bending deacons, with their cups and plates, would have straightened +themselves to sturdiness, if the proposition came before them to honor thus a fellow-man</q>; +see Cabot's Memoir, 314. Yet Dr. Leonard Bacon said of the Unitarians that +<q>it seemed as if their exclusive contemplation of Jesus Christ in his human character +as the example for our imitation had wrought in them an exceptional beauty and +Christlikeness of living.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Chadwick, Old and New Unitarian Belief, 20, speaks of Arianism as exalting Christ to +a degree of inappreciable difference from God, while Socinus looked upon him only as +a miraculously endowed man, and believed in an infallible book. The term <q>Unitarians,</q> +he claims, is derived from the <q>Uniti,</q> a society in Transylvania, in support +of mutual toleration between Calvinists, Romanists, and Socinians. The name stuck +to the advocates of the divine Unity, because they were its most active members. +B. W. Lockhart: <q>Trinity guarantees God's knowableness. Arius taught that Jesus +was neither human nor divine, but created in some grade of being between the two, +essentially unknown to man. An absentee God made Jesus his messenger, God himself +not touching the world directly at any point, and unknown and unknowable to it. +Athanasius on the contrary asserted that God did not send a messenger in Christ, but +came himself, so that to know Christ is really to know God who is essentially revealed +in him. This gave the Church the doctrine of God immanent, or Immanuel, God knowable +and actually known by men, because actually present.</q> Chapman, Jesus Christ +and the Present Age, 14—<q>The world was never further from Unitarianism than it is +to-day; we may add that Unitarianism was never further from itself.</q> On the doctrines +of the early Socinians, see Princeton Essays, 1:195. On the whole subject, see +Blunt, Dict. of Heretical Sects, art.: Arius; Guericke, Hist. Doctrine, 1:313, 319. See +also a further account of Arianism in the chapter of this Compendium on the Person of +Christ. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. This Tripersonality is not Tritheism; for, while there are +three Persons, there is but one Essence.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The term <q>person</q> only approximately represents the truth. +Although this word, more nearly than any other single word, expresses +the conception which the Scriptures give us of the relation between the +Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is not itself used in this connection +in Scripture, and we employ it in a qualified sense, not in the ordinary +sense in which we apply the word <q>person</q> to Peter, Paul, and John. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The word <q>person</q> is only the imperfect and inadequate expression of a fact that +transcends our experience and comprehension. Bunyan: <q>My dark and cloudy words, +they do but hold The truth, as cabinets encase the gold.</q> Three Gods, limiting each +other, would deprive each other of Deity. While we show that the unity is articulated +by the persons, it is equally important to remember that the persons are limited by the +unity. With us personality implies entire separation from all others—distinct individuality. +But in the one God there can be no such separation. The personal distinctions +in him must be such as are consistent with essential unity. This is the merit of +the statement in the <hi rend='italic'>Symbolum Quicumque</hi> (or Athanasian Creed, wrongly so called): +<q>The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three +Gods but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is +Lord; yet there are not three Lords but one Lord. For as we are compelled by +Christian truth to acknowledge each person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are +forbidden by the same truth to say that there are three Gods or three Lords.</q> See +<pb n='331'/><anchor id='Pg331'/> +Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, 1:270. We add that the personality of the Godhead +as a whole is separate and distinct from all others, and in this respect is more fully analogous +to man's personality than is the personality of the Father or of the Son. +</p> + +<p> +The church of Alexandria in the second century chanted together: <q>One only is +holy, the Father; One only is holy, the Son; One only is holy, the Spirit.</q> Moberly, +Atonement and Personality, 154, 167, 168—<q>The three persons are neither three Gods, +nor three parts of God. Rather are they God threefoldly, tri-personally.... The personal +distinction in Godhead is a distinction within, and of, Unity: not a distinction +which qualifies Unity, or usurps the place of it, or destroys it. It is not a relation of +mutual exclusiveness, but of mutual inclusiveness. No one person is or can be without +the others.... The personality of the supreme or absolute Being cannot be without +self-contained mutuality of relations such as Will and Love. But the mutuality +would not be real, unless the subject which becomes object, and the object which +becomes subject, were on each side alike and equally Personal.... The Unity of all-comprehending +inclusiveness is a higher mode of unity than the unity of singular +distinctiveness.... The disciples are not to have the presence of the Spirit instead of +the Son, but to have the Spirit is to have the Son. We mean by the Personal God not +a limited alternative to unlimited abstracts, such as Law, Holiness, Love, but the transcendent +and inclusive completeness of them all. The terms Father and Son are certainly +terms which rise more immediately out of the temporal facts of the incarnation +than out of the eternal relations of the divine Being. They are metaphors, however, +which mean far more in the spiritual than they do in the material sphere. Spiritual +hunger is more intense than physical hunger. So sin, judgment, grace, are metaphors. +But in <emph>John 1:1-18</emph> <q>Son</q> is not used, but <q>Word.</q></q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The necessary qualification is that, while three persons among men +have only a <emph>specific</emph> unity of nature or essence—that is, have the same +<emph>species</emph> of nature or essence,—the persons of the Godhead have a <emph>numerical</emph> +unity of nature or essence—that is, have the <emph>same</emph> nature or essence. +The undivided essence of the Godhead belongs equally to each of the persons; +Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possesses all the substance and +all the attributes of Deity. The plurality of the Godhead is therefore not +a plurality of essence, but a plurality of hypostatical, or personal, distinctions. +God is not three and one, but three in one. The one indivisible +essence has three modes of subsistence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The Trinity is not simply a partnership, in which each member can sign the name of +the firm; for this is unity of council and operation only, not of essence. God's nature +is not an abstract but an organic unity. God, as living, cannot be a mere Monad. Trinity +is the organism of the Deity. The one divine Being exists in three modes. The life +of the vine makes itself known in the life of the branches, and this union between vine +and branches Christ uses to illustrate the union between the Father and himself. (See +<emph>John 15:10—<q>If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, +and abide in his love</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>verse 5—<q>I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in me, and I in him, +the same beareth much fruit</q></emph>; <emph>17:22, 23—<q>That they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me.</q></emph>) +So, in the organism of the body, the arm has its own life, a different life from that of +the head or the foot, yet has this only by partaking of the life of the whole. See Dorner, +System of Doctrine, 1:450-453—<q>The one divine personality is so present in each of the +distinctions, that these, which singly and by themselves would not be personal, yet do +participate in the one divine personality, each in its own manner. This one divine personality +is the unity of the three modes of subsistence which participate in itself. +Neither is personal without the others. In each, in its manner, is the whole Godhead.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The human body is a complex rather than a simple organism, a unity which embraces +an indefinite number of subsidiary and dependent organisms. The one life of the body +manifests itself in the life of the nervous system, the life of the circulatory system, +and the life of the digestive system. The complete destruction of either one of these +systems destroys the other two. Psychology as well as physiology reveals to us the +possibility of a three-fold life within the bounds of a single being. In the individual +man there is sometimes a double and even a triple consciousness. Herbert Spencer, +Autobiography, 1:459; 2:204—<q>Most active minds have, I presume, more or less frequent +experiences of double consciousness—one consciousness seeming to take note +<pb n='332'/><anchor id='Pg332'/> +of what the other is about, and to applaud or blame.</q> He mentions an instance in +his own experience. <q>May there not be possible a bi-cerebral thinking, as there is a +binocular vision?... In these cases it seems as though there were going on, quite apart +from the consciousness which seemed to constitute myself, some process of elaborating +coherent thoughts—as though one part of myself was an independent originator over +whose sayings and doings I had no control, and which were nevertheless in great +measure consistent; while the other part of myself was a passive spectator or listener, +quite unprepared for many of the things that the first part said, and which were +nevertheless, though unexpected, not illogical.</q> This fact that there can be more +than one consciousness in the same personality among men should make us slow to +deny that there can be three consciousnesses in the one God. +</p> + +<p> +Humanity at large is also an organism, and this fact lends new confirmation to the +Pauline statement of organic interdependence. Modern sociology is the doctrine of +one life constituted by the union of many. <q>Unus homo, nullus homo</q> is a principle +of ethics as well as of sociology. No man can have a conscience to himself. The moral +life of one results from and is interpenetrated by the moral life of all. All men +moreover live, move and have their being in God. Within the bounds of the one universal +and divine consciousness there are multitudinous <emph>finite</emph> consciousnesses. Why +then should it be thought incredible that in the nature of this one God there should +be three <emph>infinite</emph> consciousnesses? Baldwin, Psychology, 53, 54—<q>The integration of +finite consciousnesses in an all-embracing divine consciousness may find a valid analogy +in the integration of subordinate consciousnesses in the unit-personality of man. In the +hypnotic state, multiple consciousnesses may be induced in the same nervous organism. +In insanity there is a secondary consciousness at war with that which normally dominates.</q> +Schurman, Belief in God, 26, 161—<q>The infinite Spirit may include the finite, +as the idea of a single organism embraces within a single life a plurality of members +and functions.... All souls are parts or functions of the eternal life of God, who is +above all, and through all, and in all, and in whom we live, and move, and have our +being.</q> We would draw the conclusion that, as in the body and soul of man, both as +an individual and as a race, there is diversity in unity, so in the God in whose image +man is made, there is diversity in unity, and a triple consciousness and will are consistent +with, and even find their perfection in, a single essence. +</p> + +<p> +By the personality of God we mean more than we mean when we speak of the personality +of the Son and the personality of the Spirit. The personality of the Godhead +is distinct and separate from all others, and is, in this respect, like that of man. Hence +Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:194, says <q>it is preferable to speak of the <emph>personality</emph> of the +essence rather than of the <emph>person</emph> of the essence; because the essence is not one person, +but three persons.... The divine essence cannot be at once three persons and one person, +if <q>person</q> is employed in one signification; but it can be at once three persons and +one personal Being.</q> While we speak of the one God as having a personality in which +there are three persons, we would not call this personality a superpersonality, if this +latter term is intended to intimate that God's personality is less than the personality +of man. The personality of the Godhead is inclusive rather than exclusive. +</p> + +<p> +With this qualification we may assent to the words of D'Arcy, Idealism and Theology, +93, 94, 218, 230, 236, 254—<q>The innermost truth of things, God, must be conceived as +personal; but the ultimate Unity, which is his, must be believed to be superpersonal. +It is a unity of persons, not a personal unity. For us personality is the ultimate form +of unity. It is not so in him. For in him all persons live and move and have their +being.... God is personal and also superpersonal. In him there is a transcendent +unity that can embrace a personal multiplicity.... There is in God an ultimate +superpersonal unity in which all persons are one—[all human persons and the three +divine persons].... Substance is more real than quality, and subject is more real +than substance. The most real of all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive Universal.... +What human love strives to accomplish—the overcoming of the opposition of +person to person—is perfectly attained in the divine Unity.... The presupposition +on which philosophy is driven back—[that persons have an underlying ground of +unity] is identical with that which underlies Christian theology.</q> See Pfleiderer and +Lotze on personality, in this Compendium, p. 104. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) This oneness of essence explains the fact that, while Father, Son, and +Holy Spirit, as respects their personality, are distinct subsistences, there is +an intercommunion of persons and an immanence of one divine person in +<pb n='333'/><anchor id='Pg333'/> +another which permits the peculiar work of one to be ascribed, with a single +limitation, to either of the others, and the manifestation of one to be +recognized in the manifestation of another. The limitation is simply this, +that although the Son was sent by the Father, and the Spirit by the Father +and the Son, it cannot be said <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi> that the Father is sent either by +the Son, or by the Spirit. The Scripture representations of this intercommunion +prevent us from conceiving of the distinctions called Father, Son, +and Holy Spirit as involving separation between them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Dorner adds that <q>in one is each of the others.</q> This is true with the limitation +mentioned in the text above. Whatever Christ does, God the Father can be said to do; +for God acts only in and through Christ the Revealer. Whatever the Holy Spirit does, +Christ can be said to do; for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit is the +omnipresent Jesus, and Bengel's dictum is true: <q>Ubi Spiritus, ibi Christus.</q> Passages +illustrating this intercommunion are the following: <emph>Gen. 1:1—<q>God created</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Heb. 1:2—<q rend='pre'>through +whom</q></emph> [the Son] <emph><q rend='post'>also he made the worlds</q></emph>; <emph>John 5:17, 19—<q>My Father worketh even until now, and I +work.... The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing; for what things soever he doeth, +these the Son also doeth in like manner</q></emph>; <emph>14:9—<q>he that hath seen me hath seen the Father</q></emph>; <emph>11—<q>I am in the +Father and the Father in me</q></emph>; <emph>18—<q>I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you</q></emph> (by the Holy Spirit); +<emph>15:26—<q>when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth</q></emph>; <emph>17:21—<q>that +they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 5:19—<q>God was in Christ +reconciling</q></emph>; <emph>Titus 2:10—<q>God our Savior</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 12:23—<q>God the Judge of all</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>John 5:22—<q>neither +doth the father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son</q></emph>; <emph>Acts 17:31—<q>judge the world in +righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +It is this intercommunion, together with the order of personality and operation to be +mentioned hereafter, which explains the occasional use of the term <q>Father</q> for the +whole Godhead; as in <emph>Eph. 4:6—<q rend='pre'>one God and Father of all, who is over all through all</q></emph> [in Christ], +<emph><q rend='post'>and in you all</q></emph> [by the Spirit]. This intercommunion also explains the designation of +Christ as <q><emph>the Spirit</emph>,</q> and of the Spirit as <q><emph>the Spirit of Christ</emph>,</q> as in <emph>1 Cor. 15:45—<q>the last Adam became +a life-giving Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 3:17—<q>Now the Lord is the Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>Gal. 4:6—<q>sent forth the Spirit of his Son</q></emph>; <emph>Phil. +1:19—<q>supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ</q></emph> (see Alford and Lange on <emph>2 Cor. 3:17, 18</emph>). So the Lamb, +in <emph>Rev. 5:6</emph>, has <q><emph>seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth</emph></q> = the +Holy Spirit, with his manifold powers, is the Spirit of the omnipotent, omniscient, and +omnipresent Christ. Theologians have designated this intercommunion by the terms +περιχώρησις, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>circumincessio</foreign>, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>intercommunicatio</foreign>, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>circulatio</foreign>, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>inexistentia</foreign>. The word οὐσία +was used to denote essence, substance, nature, being; and the words πρόσωπον and +ὑπόστασις for person, distinction, mode of subsistence. On the changing uses of the +words πρόσωπον and ὑπόστασις see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:321, note 2. On the meaning +of the word 'person' in connection with the Trinity, see John Howe, Calm Discourse +of the Trinity; Jonathan Edwards, Observations on the Trinity; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., +1:194, 267-275, 299, 300. +</p> + +<p> +The Holy Spirit is Christ's <emph>alter ego</emph>, or other self. When Jesus went away, it was an +exchange of his presence for his omnipresence; an exchange of limited for unlimited +power; an exchange of companionship for indwelling. Since Christ comes to men in +the Holy Spirit, he speaks through the apostles as authoritatively as if his own lips +uttered the words. Each believer, in having the Holy Spirit, has the whole Christ for +his own; see A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit. Gore, Incarnation, 218—<q>The persons +of the Holy Trinity are not separable individuals. Each involves the others; the +coming of each is the coming of the others. Thus the coming of the Spirit must have +involved the coming of the Son. But the specialty of the Pentecostal gift appears to +be the coming of the Holy Spirit out of the uplifted and glorified <emph>manhood</emph> of the +incarnate Son. The Spirit is the life-giver, but the life with which he works in the +church is the life of the <emph>Incarnate</emph>, the life of Jesus.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 85—<q>For centuries upon centuries, the essential +unity of God had been burnt and branded in upon the consciousness of Israel. It +had to be completely established first, as a basal element of thought, indispensable, +unalterable, before there could begin the disclosure to man of the reality of the eternal +relations within the one indivisible being of God. And when the disclosure came, +it came not as modifying, but as further interpreting and illumining, that unity which +<pb n='334'/><anchor id='Pg334'/> +it absolutely presupposed.</q> E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 238—<q>There is extreme +difficulty in giving any statement of a triunity that shall not verge upon tritheism on +the one hand, or upon mere modalism on the other. It was very natural that Calvin +should be charged with Sabellianism, and John Howe with tritheism.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>V. The Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are equal.</head> + +<p> +In explanation, notice that: +</p> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. These titles belong to the Persons.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Father is not God as such; for God is not only Father, but +also Son and Holy Spirit. The term <q>Father</q> designates that hypostatical +distinction in the divine nature in virtue of which God is related to the +Son, and through the Son and the Spirit to the church and the world. As +author of the believer's spiritual as well as natural life, God is doubly his +Father; but this relation which God sustains to creatures is not the ground +of the title. God is Father primarily in virtue of the relation which he +sustains to the eternal Son; only as we are spiritually united to Jesus +Christ do we become children of God. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The Son is not God as such; for God is not only Son, but also +Father and Holy Spirit. <q>The Son</q> designates that distinction in virtue +of which God is related to the Father, is sent by the Father to redeem the +world, and with the Father sends the Holy Spirit. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The Holy Spirit is not God as such; for God is not only Holy Spirit, +but also Father and Son. <q>The Holy Spirit</q> designates that distinction in +virtue of which God is related to the Father and the Son, and is sent by +them to accomplish the work of renewing the ungodly and of sanctifying +the church. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Neither of these names designates the Monad as such. Each designates rather that +personal distinction which forms the eternal basis and ground for a particular self-revelation. +In the sense of being the Author and Provider of men's natural life, God +is the Father of all. But even this natural sonship is mediated by Jesus Christ; see +<emph>1 Cor. 8:6—<q>one Lord, Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and we through him.</q></emph> The phrase <q><emph>Our Father</emph>,</q> +however, can be used with the highest truth only by the regenerate, who have been +newly born of God by being united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. +See <emph>Gal. 3:26—<q>For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ</q></emph>; <emph>4:4-6—<q>God sent forth his Son ... +that we might receive the adoption of sons ... sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. +1:5—<q>foreordained as unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.</q></emph> God's love for Christ is the measure +of his love for those who are one with Christ. Human nature in Christ is lifted up into +the life and communion of the eternal Trinity. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:306-310. +</p> + +<p> +Human fatherhood is a reflection of the divine, not, <hi rend='italic'>vice versa</hi>, the divine a reflection +of the human; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Eph. 3:14, 15—<q rend='pre'>the Father, from whom every fatherhood</q></emph> πατριά <emph><q rend='post'>in heaven and on earth is +named.</q></emph> Chadwick, Unitarianism, 77-83, makes the name <q>Father</q> only a symbol for +the great Cause of organic evolution, the Author of all being. But we may reply with +Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 177—<q>to know God outside of the sphere +of redemption is not to know him in the deeper meaning of the term <q>Father</q>. It is +only through the Son that we know the Father: <emph>Mat. 11:27—<q>Neither doth any know the Father, +save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.</q></emph></q> +</p> + +<p> +Whiton, Gloria Patri, 38—<q>The Unseen can be known only by the seen which comes +forth from it. The all-generating or Paternal Life which is hidden from us can be +known only by the generated or Filial Life in which it reveals itself. The goodness +and righteousness which inhabits eternity can be known only by the goodness and +righteousness which issues from it in the successive births of time. God above the +world is made known only by God in the world. God transcendent, the Father, is +revealed by God immanent, the Son.</q> Faber: <q>O marvellous, O worshipful! No song +or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom and in power, +<pb n='335'/><anchor id='Pg335'/> +the Father speaks his dear eternal Word.</q> We may interpret this as meaning that self-expression +is a necessity of nature to an infinite Mind. The Word is therefore eternal. +Christ is the mirror from which are flashed upon us the rays of the hidden Luminary. +So Principal Fairbairn says: <q>Theology must be on its historical side Christocentric, +but on its doctrinal side Theocentric.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Salmond, Expositor's Greek Testament, on <emph>Eph. 1:5</emph>—<q>By <emph><q>adoption</q></emph> Paul does not mean +the bestowal of the full privileges of the family on those who are sons by nature, but +the acceptance into the family of those who are not sons originally and by right in the +relation proper of those who are sons by birth. Hence υἱοθεσία is never affirmed of +Christ, for he alone is Son of God by nature. So Paul regards our sonship, not as lying +in the natural relation in which men stand to God as his children, but as implying a +new relation of grace, founded on a covenant relation of God and on the work of Christ +(<emph>Gal. 4:5</emph> <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>).</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. Qualified sense of these titles.</head> + +<p> +Like the word <q>person</q>, the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not +to be confined within the precise limitations of meaning which would be +required if they were applied to men. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The Scriptures enlarge our conceptions of Christ's Sonship by +giving to him in his preëxistent state the names of the Logos, the Image, +and the Effulgence of God.—The term <q>Logos</q> combines in itself the two +ideas of thought and word, of reason and expression. While the Logos as +divine thought or reason is one with God, the Logos as divine word or +expression is distinguishable from God. Words are the means by which +personal beings express or reveal themselves. Since Jesus Christ was <q>the +Word</q> before there were any creatures to whom revelations could be made, +it would seem to be only a necessary inference from this title that in Christ +God must be from eternity expressed or revealed to himself; in other +words, that the Logos is the principle of truth, or self-consciousness, in +God.—The term <q>Image</q> suggests the ideas of copy or counterpart. Man +is the image of God only relatively and derivatively. Christ is the Image +of God absolutely and archetypally. As the perfect representation of the +Father's perfections, the Son would seem to be the object and principle of +love in the Godhead.—The term <q>Effulgence,</q> finally, is an allusion to the +sun and its radiance. As the effulgence of the sun manifests the sun's +nature, which otherwise would be unrevealed, yet is inseparable from +the sun and ever one with it, so Christ reveals God, but is eternally one +with God. Here is a principle of movement, of will, which seems to connect +itself with the holiness, or self-asserting purity, of the divine nature. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Smyth, Introd. to Edwards' Observations on the Trinity: <q>The ontological relations +of the persons of the Trinity are not a mere blank to human thought.</q> <emph>John 1:1—<q>In the +beginning was the Word</q></emph>—means more than <q>in the beginning was the <hi rend='italic'>x</hi>, or the zero.</q> Godet +indeed says that Logos = <q>reason</q> only in philosophical writings, but never in the +Scriptures. He calls this a Hegelian notion. But both Plato and Philo had made this +signification a common one. On λόγος as = reason + speech, see Lightfoot on Colossians, +143, 144. Meyer interprets it as <q>personal subsistence, the self-revelation of the +divine essence, before all time immanent in God.</q> Neander, Planting and Training, +369—Logos = <q>the eternal Revealer of the divine essence.</q> Bushnell: <q>Mirror of +creative imagination</q>; <q>form of God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Word = 1. Expression; 2. Definite expression; 3. Ordered expression; 4. Complete +expression. We make thought definite by putting it into language. So God's wealth +of ideas is in the Word formed into an ordered Kingdom, a true Cosmos; see Mason, +Faith of the Gospel, 76. Max Müller: <q>A word is simply a spoken thought made audible +as sound. Take away from a word the sound, and what is left is simply the thought of +<pb n='336'/><anchor id='Pg336'/> +it.</q> Whiton, Gloria Patri, 72, 73—<q>The Greek saw in the word the abiding thought +behind the passing form. The Word was God and yet finite—finite only as to form, +infinite as to what the form suggests or expresses. By Word some form must be meant, +and any form is finite. The Word is the form taken by the infinite Intelligence which +transcends all forms.</q> We regard this identification of the Word with the finite manifestation +of the Word as contradicted by <emph>John 1:1</emph>, where the Word is represented as +being with God before creation, and by <emph>Phil. 2:6</emph>, where the Word is represented as existing +in the form of God before his self-limitation in human nature. Scripture requires +us to believe in an objectification of God to himself in the person of the Word prior to +any finite manifestation of God to men. Christ existed as the Word, and the Word was +with God, before the Word was made flesh and before the world came into being; in +other words, the Logos was the eternal principle of truth or self-consciousness in the +nature of God. +</p> + +<p> +Passages representing Christ as the Image of God are <emph>Col. 1:15—<q>who is the image of the invisible +God</q></emph>; <emph>2 Cor. 4:4—<q>Christ, who is the image of God</q></emph> (εἰκών); <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q>the very image of his substance</q></emph> +(χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ); here χαρακτήρ means <q>impress,</q> <q>counterpart.</q> Christ is +the perfect image of God, as men are not. He therefore has consciousness and will. +He possesses all the attributes and powers of God. The word <q>Image</q> suggests the perfect +equality with God which the title <q>Son</q> might at first seem to deny. The living +Image of God which is equal to himself and is the object of his infinite love can be +nothing less than personal. As the bachelor can never satisfy his longing for companionship +by lining his room with mirrors which furnish only a lifeless reflection of himself, +so God requires for his love a personal as well as an infinite object. The Image is +not precisely the <emph>repetition</emph> of the original. The stamp from the seal is not precisely +the <emph>reproduction</emph> of the seal. The letters on the seal run backwards and can be easily +read only when the impression is before us. So Christ is the only interpretation and +revelation of the hidden Godhead. As only in love do we come to know the depths +of our own being, so it is only in the Son that <emph><q>God is love</q> (1 John 4:8)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +Christ is spoken of as the Effulgence of God in <emph>Heb. 1:3—<q>who being the effulgence of his glory</q></emph> +(ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης); <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>2 Cor. 4:6—<q>shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory +of God in the face of Jesus Christ.</q></emph> Notice that the radiance of the sun is as old as the sun +itself, and without it the sun would not be sun. So Christ is coëqual and coëternal +with the Father. <emph>Ps. 84:11—<q>Jehovah God is a sun.</q></emph> But we cannot see the sun except by +the sunlight. Christ is the sunlight which streams forth from the Sun and which makes +the Sun visible. If there be an eternal Sun, there must be also an eternal Sunlight, +and Christ must be eternal. Westcott on <emph>Hebrews 1:3</emph>—<q>The use of the absolute timeless +term ὤν, <q><emph>being</emph></q>, guards against the thought that the Lord's sonship was by adoption, +and not by nature. ἀπαύγασμα does not express personality, and χαρακτήρ does not +express coëssentiality. The two words are related exactly as ὁμοούσιος and μονογενής, +and like those must be combined to give the fulness of the truth. The truth expressed +thus antithetically holds good absolutely.... In Christ the essence of God is made distinct; +in Christ the revelation of God's character is seen.</q> On Edwards's view of the +Trinity, together with his quotations from Ramsey's Philosophical Principles, from +which he seems to have derived important suggestions, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, +338-376; G. P. Fisher, Edwards's Essay on the Trinity, 110-116. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The names thus given to the second person of the Trinity, if they +have <emph>any</emph> significance, bring him before our minds in the general aspect +of Revealer, and suggest a relation of the doctrine of the Trinity to God's +immanent attributes of truth, love, and holiness. The prepositions used to +describe the internal relations of the second person to the first are not prepositions +of rest, but prepositions of direction and movement. The Trinity, +as the organism of Deity, secures a life-movement of the Godhead, a process +in which God evermore objectifies himself and in the Son gives forth +of his fulness. Christ represents the centrifugal action of the deity. But +there must be centripetal action also. In the Holy Spirit the movement is +completed, and the divine activity and thought returns into itself. True +religion, in reuniting us to God, reproduces in us, in our limited measure, +this eternal process of the divine mind. Christian experience witnesses that +<pb n='337'/><anchor id='Pg337'/> +God in himself is unknown; Christ is the organ of external revelation; the +Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation—only he can give us an +inward apprehension or realization of the truth. It is <q>through the eternal +Spirit</q> that Christ <q>offered himself without blemish unto God,</q> and +it is only through the Holy Spirit that the church has access to the Father, +or fallen creatures can return to God. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Here we see that God is Life, self-sufficient Life, Infinite Life, of which the life of the +universe is but a faint reflection, a rill from the fountain, a drop from the ocean. +Since Christ is the only Revealer, the only outgoing principle in the Godhead, it is he +in whom the whole creation comes to be and holds together. He is the Life of nature: +all natural beauty and grandeur, all forces molecular and molar, all laws of gravitation +and evolution, are the work and manifestation of the omnipresent Christ. He is the Life +of humanity: the intellectual and moral impulses of man, so far as they are normal +and uplifting, are due to Christ; he is the principle of progress and improvement in +history. He is the Life of the church: the one and only Redeemer and spiritual Head +of the race is also its Teacher and Lord. +</p> + +<p> +All objective revelation of God is the work of Christ. But all subjective manifestation +of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. As Christ is the principle of outgoing, so +the Holy Spirit is the principle of return to God. God would take up finite creatures +into himself, would breath into them his breath, would teach them to launch +their little boats upon the infinite current of his life. Our electric cars can go up hill +at great speed so long as they grip the cable. Faith is the grip which connects us with +the moving energy of God. <q>The universe is homeward bound,</q> because the Holy +Spirit is ever turning objective revelation into subjective revelation, and is leading +men consciously or unconsciously to appropriate the thought and love and purpose of +Him in whom all things find their object and end; <emph><q>for of him and through him, and unto him, are +all things</q> (Rom. 11:36)</emph>,—here there is allusion to the Father as the source, the Son as the +medium, and the Spirit as the perfecting and completing agent, in God's operations. +But all these external processes are only signs and finite reflections of a life-process +internal to the nature of God. +</p> + +<p> +Meyer on <emph>John 1:1—<q>the Word was with God</q></emph>: <q>πρὸς τὸν θεόν does not = παρὰ τῷ θεῷ, but +expresses the existence of the Logos in God in respect of intercourse. The moral +essence of this essential fellowship is love, which excludes any merely modalistic conception.</q> +Marcus Dods, Expositor's Greek Testament, <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>: <q>This preposition +implies intercourse and therefore separate personality.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 62—<q><emph>And the Word was toward God</emph></q> = his face is not outwards, +as if he were merely revealing, or waiting to reveal, God to the creation. His face is +turned inwards. His whole Person is directed toward God, motion corresponding to +motion, thought to thought.... In him God stands revealed to himself. Contrast +the attitude of fallen Adam, with his face averted from God. Godet, on <emph>John 1:1</emph>—<q>Πρὸς +τὸν θεόν intimates not only personality but movement.... The tendency of the +Logos <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ad extra</foreign> rests upon an anterior and essential relation <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>ad intra</foreign>. To reveal God, +one must know him; to project him outwardly, one must have plunged into his +bosom.</q> Compare <emph>John 1:18—<q>the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father</q></emph> (R. V.) where +we find, not ἐν τῷ κόλπῷ, but εἰς τὸν κόλπον. As ἦν εἰς τὴν πόλιν means <q>went into the city +and was there,</q> so the use of these prepositions indicates in the Godhead movement +as well as rest. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 3:193, translates πρός by <q><foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>hingewandt zu</foreign>,</q> +or <q>turned toward.</q> The preposition would then imply that the Revealer, who existed +in the beginning, was ever over against God, in the life-process of the Trinity, as the +perfect objectification of himself. <q>Das Aussichselbstsein kraft des Durchsichselbstsein +mit dem Fürsichselbstsein zusammenschliesst.</q> Dorner speaks of <q>das Aussensichoderineinemandernsein; +Sichgeltendmachen des Ausgeschlossenen; Sichnichtsogesetzthaben; +Stehenbleibenwollen.</q> +</p> + +<p> +There is in all human intelligence a threefoldness which points toward a trinitarian +life in God. We can distinguish a <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Wissen</foreign>, a <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Bewusstsein</foreign>, a <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Selbstbewusstein</foreign>. In complete +self-consciousness there are the three elements: 1. We are ourselves; 2. We +form a picture of ourselves; 3. We recognize this picture as the picture of ourselves. +The little child speaks of himself in the third person: <q>Baby did it.</q> The objective +comes before the subject; <q>me</q> comes first, and <q>I</q> is a later development; <q>himself</q> +still holds its place, rather than <q>heself.</q> But this duality belongs only to undeveloped +intelligence; it is characteristic of the animal creation; we revert to it in our +<pb n='338'/><anchor id='Pg338'/> +dreams; the insane are permanent victims of it; and since sin is moral insanity, the +sinner has no hope until, like the prodigal, he <emph><q>comes to himself</q> (Luke 15:17)</emph>. The insane +person is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>mente alienatus</foreign>, and we call physicians for the insane by the name of <emph>alienists</emph>. +Mere duality gives us only the notion of separation. Perfect self-consciousness whether +in man or in God requires a third unifying element. And in God mediation between +the <q>I</q> and the <q>Thou</q> must be the work of a Person also, and the Person who mediates +between the two must be in all respects the equal of either, or he could not adequately +interpret the one to the other; see Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 57-59. +</p> + +<p> +Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:179-189, 276-283—<q>It is one of the effects of conviction by the +Holy Spirit to convert consciousness into self-consciousness.... Conviction of sin is +the consciousness of self as the guilty author of sin. Self-consciousness is trinal, while +mere consciousness is dual.... One and the same human spirit subsists in two modes or +distinctions—subject and object ... The three hypostatical consciousnesses in their +combination and unity constitute the one consciousness of God ... as the three persons +make one essence.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Dorner considers the internal relations of the Trinity (System, 1:412 <hi rend='italic'>sq.</hi>) in three +aspects: 1. Physical. God is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>causa sui</foreign>. But effect that equals cause must itself be +causative. Here would be duality, were it not for a third principle of unity. Trinitas +dualitatem ad unitatem reducit. 2. Logical. Self-consciousness sets self over against +self. Yet the thinker must not regard self as one of many, and call himself <q>he,</q> as +children do; for the thinker would then be, not <emph>self</emph>-conscious, but <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>mente alienatus</foreign>, +<q>beside himself.</q> He therefore <q>comes to himself</q> in a third, as the brute cannot. +3. Ethical. God—self-willing right. But right based on arbitrary will is not right. +Right based on passive nature is not right either. Right as <emph>being</emph>—Father. Right as +<emph>willing</emph>—Son. Without the latter principle of freedom, we have a dead ethic, a dead +God, an enthroned necessity. The unity of necessity and freedom is found by God, as +by the Christian, in the Holy Spirit. The Father—I; the Son—Me; the Spirit the +unity of the two; see C. C. Everett, Essays, Theological and Literary, 32. There must +be not only Sun and Sunlight, but an Eye to behold the Light. William James, in his +Psychology, distinguishes the <emph>Me</emph>, the self as known, from the <emph>I</emph>, the self as knower. +</p> + +<p> +But we need still further to distinguish a third principle, a subject-object, from +both subject and object. The subject cannot recognize the object as one with itself +except through a unifying principle which can be distinguished from both. We may +therefore regard the Holy Spirit as the principle of self-consciousness in man as well +as in God. As there was a natural union of Christ with humanity prior to his redeeming +work, so there is a natural union of the Holy Spirit with all men prior to his regenerating +work: <emph>Job 32:18—<q>there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.</q></emph> +Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, teaches that the Holy Spirit constitutes the principle +of life in all living things, and animates all rational beings, as well as regenerates and +sanctifies the elect of God. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 75, remarks on <emph>Job 34:14, 15—<q>If +he gather unto himself his Spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together</q></emph>—that the Spirit is not +only necessary to man's salvation, but also to keep up even man's natural life. +</p> + +<p> +Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:172, speaks of the Son as the centrifugal, while the Holy Spirit +is the centripetal movement of the Godhead. God apart from Christ is unrevealed +(<emph>John 1:18—<q>No man hath seen God at any time</q></emph>); Christ is the organ of external revelation (<emph>18—<q>the +only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him</q></emph>); the Holy Spirit is the +organ of internal revelation (<emph>1 Cor. 2:10—<q>unto us Christ revealed them through the Spirit</q></emph>). That +the Holy Spirit is the principle of all movement towards God appears from <emph>Heb. 9:14</emph>—Christ +<q><emph>through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God</emph></q>; <emph>Eph. 2:28—<q>access in one Spirit +unto the Father</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:26—<q>the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... the Spirit himself maketh intercession for +us</q></emph>; <emph>John 4:24—<q>God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit</q></emph>; <emph>16:8-11—<q>convict the world +in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.</q></emph> See Twesten, Dogmatik, on the Trinity; also +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:111. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 68—<q>It is +the joy of the Son to receive, his gladness to welcome most those wishes of the Father +which will cost most to himself. The Spirit also has his joy in making known,—in +perfecting fellowship and keeping the eternal love alive by that incessant sounding of +the deeps which makes the heart of the Father known to the Son, and the heart of the +Son known to the Father.</q> We may add that the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal +revelation even to the Father and to the Son. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) In the light of what has been said, we may understand somewhat +more fully the characteristic differences between the work of Christ and +that of the Holy Spirit. We may sum them up in the four statements that, +<pb n='339'/><anchor id='Pg339'/> +first, all outgoing seems to be the work of Christ, all return to God the +work of the Spirit; secondly, Christ is the organ of external revelation, +the Holy Spirit the organ of internal revelation; thirdly, Christ is our +advocate in heaven, the Holy Spirit is our advocate in the soul; fourthly, in +the work of Christ we are passive, in the work of the Spirit we are active. +Of the work of Christ we shall treat more fully hereafter, in speaking of +his Offices as Prophet, Priest, and King. The work of the Holy Spirit +will be treated when we come to speak of the Application of Redemption in +Regeneration and Sanctification. Here it is sufficient to say that the Holy +Spirit is represented in the Scriptures as the author of life—in creation, +in the conception of Christ, in regeneration, in resurrection; and as the +giver of light—in the inspiration of Scripture writers, in the conviction of +sinners, in the illumination and sanctification of Christians. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Gen. 1:2—<q>The Spirit of God was brooding</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 1:35</emph>—to Mary: <q><emph>The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee</emph></q>, +<emph>John 3:8—<q>born of the Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 37:9, 14—<q>Come from the four winds, O breath.... I will put my Spirit in +you, and ye shall live</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:11—<q>give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit.</q></emph> <emph>1 John 2:1—<q rend='pre'>an advocate</q></emph> +(παράκλητον) <emph><q rend='post'>with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous</q></emph>; <emph>John 14:16, 17—<q rend='pre'>another Comforter</q></emph> (παράκλητον), +<emph><q rend='post'>that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:26—<q>the Spirit himself maketh intercession for +us.</q></emph> <emph>2 Pet. 1:21—<q>men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit</q></emph>; <emph>John 16:8—<q>convict the world in respect +of sin</q></emph>; <emph>13—<q>when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:14—<q>as many as +are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +McCosh: The works of the Spirit are Conviction, Conversion, Sanctification, Comfort. +Donovan: The Spirit is the Spirit of conviction, enlightenment, quickening, in +the sinner; and of revelation, remembrance, witness, sanctification, consolation, to +the saint. The Spirit enlightens the sinner, as the flash of lightning lights the traveler +stumbling on the edge of a precipice at night; enlightens the Christian, as the rising +sun reveals a landscape which was all there before, but which was hidden from sight +until the great luminary made it visible. <q>The morning light did not create The lovely +prospect it revealed; It only showed the real state Of what the darkness had concealed.</q> +Christ's advocacy before the throne is like that of legal counsel pleading in our stead; +the Holy Spirit's advocacy in the heart is like the mother's teaching her child to pray +for himself. +</p> + +<p> +J. W. A. Stewart: <q>Without the work of the Holy Spirit redemption would have +been impossible, as impossible as that fuel should warm without being lighted, or that +bread should nourish without being eaten. Christ is God entering into human history, +but without the Spirit Christianity would be only history. The Holy Spirit is God +entering into human hearts. The Holy Spirit turns creed into life. Christ is the physician +who leaves the remedy and then departs. The Holy Spirit is the nurse who +applies and administers the remedy, and who remains with the patient until the cure +is completed.</q> Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 78—<q>It is in vain that the mirror exists +in the room, if it is lying on its face; the sunbeams cannot reach it till its face is +upturned to them. Heaven lies about thee not only in thine infancy but at all times. +But it is not enough that a place is prepared for thee; thou must be prepared for the +place. It is not enough that thy light has come; thou thyself must arise and shine. +No outward shining can reveal, unless thou art thyself a reflector of its glory. The +Spirit must set thee on thy feet, that thou mayest hear him that speaks to thee +(Ez. 2:2).</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Holy Spirit reveals not himself but Christ. <emph>John 16:14—<q>He shall glorify me: for he shall +take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.</q></emph> So should the servants of the Spirit hide themselves +while they make known Christ. E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, 40—<q>Some years ago +a large steam engine all of glass was exhibited about the country. When it was at +work one would see the piston and the valves go; but no one could see what made +them go. When steam is hot enough to be a continuous elastic vapor, it is invisible.</q> +So we perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit, not by visions or voices, but by the +effect he produces within us in the shape of new knowledge, new love, and new energy +of our own powers. Denney, Studies in Theology, 161—<q>No man can bear witness to +Christ and to himself at the same time. <foreign lang='fr' rend='italic'>Esprit</foreign> is fatal to unction; no man can give +the impression that he himself is clever and also that Christ is mighty to save. The +<pb n='340'/><anchor id='Pg340'/> +power of the Holy Spirit is felt only when the witness is unconscious of self, and when +others remain unconscious of him.</q> Moule, Veni Creator, 8—<q>The Holy Spirit, as +Tertullian says, is the vicar of Christ. The night before the Cross, the Holy Spirit was +present to the mind of Christ as a person.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Gore, in Lux Mundi, 318—<q>It was a point in the charge against Origen that his language +seemed to involve an exclusion of the Holy Spirit from nature, and a limitation +of his activity to the church. The whole of life is certainly his. And yet, because his +special attribute is holiness, it is in rational natures, which alone are capable of holiness, +that he exerts his special influence. A special inbreathing of the divine Spirit +gave to man his proper being.</q> See <emph>Gen. 2:7—<q>Jehovah God ... breathed into his nostrils the breath +of life; and man became a living soul</q></emph>; <emph>John 3:8—<q>The Spirit breatheth where it will ... so is every one that is +born of the Spirit.</q></emph> E. H. Johnson, on The Offices of the Holy Spirit, in Bib. Sac., July, 1892:381-382—<q>Why +is he specially called the Holy, when Father and Son are also holy, +unless because he produces holiness, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, makes the holiness of God to be ours individually? +Christ is the principle of collectivism, the Holy Spirit the principle of individualism. +The Holy Spirit shows man the Christ in him. God above all = Father; God +through all = Son; God in all = Holy Spirit (<emph>Eph. 4:6</emph>).</q> +</p> + +<p> +The doctrine of the Holy Spirit has never yet been scientifically unfolded. No treatise +on it has appeared comparable to Julius Müller's Doctrine of Sin, or to I. A. Dorner's +History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ. The progress of doctrine in the past +has been marked by successive stages. Athanasius treated of the Trinity; Augustine +of sin; Anselm of the atonement; Luther of justification; Wesley of regeneration; +and each of these unfoldings of doctrine has been accompanied by religious awakening. +We still wait for a complete discussion of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and +believe that widespread revivals will follow the recognition of the omnipotent Agent +in revivals. On the relations of the Holy Spirit to Christ, see Owen, in Works, 3:152-159; +on the Holy Spirit's nature and work, see works by Faber, Smeaton, Tophel, G. +Campbell Morgan, J. D. Robertson, Biederwolf; also C. E. Smith, The Baptism of Fire; +J. D. Thompson, The Holy Comforter; Bushnell, Forgiveness and Law, last chapter; +Bp. Andrews, Works, 3:107-400; James S. Candlish, Work of the Holy Spirit; Redford, +Vox Dei; Andrew Murray, The Spirit of Christ; A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit; +Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit; J. E. Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit; Lechler, +Lehre vom Heiligen Geiste; Arthur, Tongue of Fire; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and +Religion, 250-258, and Christ in Creation, 297-313. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. Generation and procession consistent with equality.</head> + +<p> +That the Sonship of Christ is eternal, is intimated in Psalm 2:7. <q>This +day have I begotten thee</q> is most naturally interpreted as the declaration +of an eternal fact in the divine nature. Neither the incarnation, the +baptism, the transfiguration, nor the resurrection marks the beginning of +Christ's Sonship, or constitutes him Son of God. These are but recognitions +or manifestations of a preëxisting Sonship, inseparable from his Godhood. +He is <q>born before every creature</q> (while yet no created thing +existed—see Meyer on Col. 1:15) and <q>by the resurrection of the dead</q> +is not <emph>made</emph> to be, but only <q><emph>declared</emph> to be,</q> <q>according to the Spirit of +holiness</q> (= according to his divine nature) <q>the Son of God with +power</q> (see Philippi and Alford on Rom. 1:3, 4). This Sonship is unique—not +predicable of, or shared with, any creature. The Scriptures intimate, +not only an eternal generation of the Son, but an eternal procession +of the Spirit. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<emph>Psalm 2:7—<q>I will tell of the decree: Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my Son; This day I have begotten thee</q></emph> +see Alexander, Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>; also Com. on <emph>Acts 13:33</emph>—<q><emph><q>To-day</q></emph> refers to the date of the +decree itself; but this, as a divine act, was eternal,—and so must be the Sonship which +it affirms.</q> Philo says that <q>to-day</q> with God means <q>forever.</q> This begetting of +which the Psalm speaks is not the resurrection, for while Paul in <emph>Acts 13:33</emph> refers to this +Psalm to establish the fact of Jesus' Sonship, he refers in <emph>Acts 13:34, 35</emph> to another Psalm, +the <emph>sixteenth</emph>, to establish the fact that this Son of God was to rise from the dead. Christ +is shown to be Son of God by his incarnation (<emph>Heb. 1:5, 6—<q>when he again bringeth in the firstborn +<pb n='341'/><anchor id='Pg341'/> +into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him</q></emph>), his baptism (<emph>Mat. 3:17—<q>This is my beloved +Son</q></emph>), his transfiguration (<emph>Mat. 17:5—<q>This is my beloved Son</q></emph>), his resurrection (<emph>Acts 13:34, 35—<q>as +concerning that he raised him up from the dead ... he saith also in another psalm, Thou wilt not give thy Holy One +to see corruption</q></emph>). <emph>Col. 1:15—<q>the firstborn of all creation</q></emph>—πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως = <q>begotten +first before all creation</q> (Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 14); or <q>first-born before every +creature, <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, begotten, and that antecedently to everything that was created</q> (Ellicott, +Com. <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>). <q>Herein</q> (says Luthardt, Compend. Dogmatik, 81, on <emph>Col. 1:15</emph>) <q>is +indicated an antemundane origin from God—a relation internal to the divine nature.</q> +Lightfoot, on <emph>Col. 1:15</emph>, says that in Rabbi Bechai God is called the <q><foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>primogenitus mundi</foreign>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +On <emph>Rom. 1:4</emph> (ὁρισθέντος = <q>manifested to be the mighty Son of God</q>) see Lange's +Com., notes by Schaff on pages 56 and 61. Bruce, Apologetics, 404—<q>The resurrection +was the actual introduction of Christ into the full possession of divine Sonship so far as +thereto belonged, not only the <emph>inner</emph> of a holy spiritual essence, but also the <emph>outer</emph> of an +existence in power and heavenly glory.</q> Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 353, 354—<q>Calvin +waves aside eternal generation as an <q>absurd fiction.</q> But to maintain the deity of +Christ merely on the ground that it is essential to his making an adequate atonement +for sin, is to involve the rejection of his deity if ever the doctrine of atonement +becomes obnoxious.... Such was the process by which, in the mind of the last century, +the doctrine of the Trinity was undermined. Not to ground the distinctions of +the divine essence by some immanent eternal necessity was to make easy the denial of +what has been called the ontological Trinity, and then the rejection of the economical +Trinity was not difficult or far away.</q> +</p> + +<p> +If Westcott and Hort's reading ὁ μονογενὴς Θεός, <q><emph>the only begotten God</emph>,</q> in <emph>John 1:18</emph>, is correct, +we have a new proof of Christ's eternal Sonship. Meyer explains ἑαυτοῦ in <emph>Rom. 8:3—<q>God, +sending his own Son,</q></emph> as an allusion to the metaphysical Sonship. That this Sonship is +unique, is plain from <emph>John 1:14, 18—<q>the only begotten from the Father ... the only begotten Son who is in +the bosom of the father</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 8:32—<q>his own Son</q></emph>; <emph>Gal. 4:4—<q>sent forth his Son</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Prov. 8:22-31—<q>When +he marked out the foundations of the earth; Then I was by him as a master workman</q></emph>; <emph>30:4—<q>Who hath established all +the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?</q></emph> The eternal procession +of the Spirit seems to be implied in <emph>John 15:26—<q>the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father</q></emph>—see +Westcott, Bib. Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>; <emph>Heb. 9:14—<q>the eternal Spirit.</q></emph> Westcott here says that +παρά (not ἐξ) shows that the reference is to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, not +to the eternal procession. At the same time he maintains that the temporal corresponds +to the eternal. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The Scripture terms <q>generation</q> and <q>procession,</q> as applied to the +Son and to the Holy Spirit, are but approximate expressions of the truth, +and we are to correct by other declarations of Scripture any imperfect +impressions which we might derive solely from them. We use these terms +in a special sense, which we explicitly state and define as excluding all +notion of inequality between the persons of the Trinity. The eternal generation +of the Son to which we hold is +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) Not creation, but the Father's communication of himself to the +Son. Since the names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not applicable to +the divine essence, but are only applicable to its hypostatical distinctions, +they imply no derivation of the essence of the Son from the essence of +the Father. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The error of the Nicene Fathers was that of explaining Sonship as derivation of +essence. The Father cannot impart his essence to the Son and yet retain it. The +Father is <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>fons trinitatis</foreign>, not <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>fons deitatis</foreign>. See Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:308-311, and Dogm. +Theol., 1:287-299; <hi rend='italic'>per contra</hi>, see Bib. Sac., 41:698-760. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) Not a commencement of existence, but an eternal relation to the +Father,—there never having been a time when the Son began to be, or +when the Son did not exist as God with the Father. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +If there had been an eternal sun, it is evident that there must have been an eternal +sunlight also. Yet an eternal sunlight must have evermore proceeded from the sun. +<pb n='342'/><anchor id='Pg342'/> +When Cyril was asked whether the Son existed before generation, he answered: <q>The +generation of the Son did not precede his existence, but he always existed, and that by +generation.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Not an act of the Father's will, but an internal necessity of the +divine nature,—so that the Son is no more dependent upon the Father than +the Father is dependent upon the Son, and so that, if it be consistent with +deity to be Father, it is equally consistent with deity to be Son. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The sun is as dependent upon the sunlight as the sunlight is upon the sun; for without +sunlight the sun is no true sun. So God the Father is as dependent upon God the +Son, as God the Son is dependent upon God the Father; for without Son the Father +would be no true Father. To say that aseity belongs only to the Father is logically Arianism +and Subordinationism proper, for it implies a subordination of the essence of the +Son to the Father. Essential subordination would be inconsistent with equality. See +Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:115. Palmer, Theol. Definitions, 66, 67, says +that Father = independent life; Son begotten = independent life voluntarily brought +under limitations; Spirit = necessary consequence of existence of the other two.... +The words and actions whereby we design to affect others are <q>begotten.</q> The atmosphere +of unconscious influence is not <q>begotten,</q> but <q>proceeding.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Not a relation in any way analogous to physical derivation, but a life-movement +of the divine nature, in virtue of which Father, Son, and Holy +Spirit, while equal in essence and dignity, stand to each other in an order +of personality, office, and operation, and in virtue of which the Father +works through the Son, and the Father and the Son through the Spirit. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The subordination of the <emph>person</emph> of the Son to the <emph>person</emph> of the Father, or in other +words an order of personality, office, and operation which permits the Father to be +officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly consistent with equality. +Priority is not necessarily superiority. The possibility of an order, which yet involves +no inequality, may be illustrated by the relation between man and woman. In office +man is first and woman second, but woman's soul is worth as much as man's; see <emph>1 Cor. +11:3—<q>the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God.</q></emph> On +<emph>John 14:28—<q>the Father is greater than I</q></emph>—see Westcott, Bib. Com., <hi rend='italic'>in loco</hi>. +</p> + +<p> +Edwards, Observations on the Trinity (edited by Smyth), 22—<q>In the Son the whole +deity and glory of the Father is as it were repeated or duplicated. Everything in the +Father is repeated or expressed again, and that fully, so that there is properly no +inferiority.</q> Edwards, Essay on the Trinity (edited by Fisher), 110-116—<q>The Father +is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated, and most absolute manner, or the +Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God's understanding, +or having an Idea of himself and subsisting in that Idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity +subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God's infinite +love to and delight in himself. And I believe the whole divine essence does truly and +distinctly subsist both in the divine Idea and in the divine Love, and each of them are +properly distinct persons.... We find no other attributes of which it is said in Scripture +that they are God, or that God is they, but λόγος and ἀγάπη, the Reason and the +Love of God, Light not being different from Reason.... Understanding may be predicated +of this Love.... It is not a blind Love.... The Father has Wisdom or Reason +by the Son's being in him.... Understanding is in the Holy Spirit, because the Son is +in him.</q> Yet Dr. Edwards A. Park declared eternal generation to be <q>eternal nonsense,</q> +and is thought to have hid Edwards's unpublished Essay on the Trinity for +many years because it taught this doctrine. +</p> + +<p> +The New Testament calls Christ θεός, but not ὁ θεός. We frankly recognize an eternal +subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination +is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of +essence. <q>Non de essentia dicitur, sed de ministeriis.</q> E. G. Robinson: <q>An eternal +generation is necessarily an eternal subordination and dependence. This seems to be +fully admitted even by the most orthodox of the Anglican writers, such as Pearson +and Hooker. Christ's subordination to the Father is merely official, not essential.</q> +Whiton, Gloria Patri, 42, 96—<q>The early Trinitarians by eternal Sonship meant, +first, that it is of the very nature of Deity to issue forth into visible expression. Thus +<pb n='343'/><anchor id='Pg343'/> +next, that this outward expression of God is not something other than God, but God +himself, in a self-expression as divine as the hidden Deity. Thus they answered Philip's +cry, <emph><q>show us the Father, and it sufficeth us</q> (John 14:8)</emph>, and thus they affirmed Jesus' declaration, +they secured Paul's faith that God has never left himself without witness. They meant, +<emph><q>he that hath seen me hath seen the Father</q> (John 14:9)</emph>.... The Father is the Life transcendent, the +divine Source, <q><emph>above all</emph></q>; the Son is the Life immanent, the divine Stream, <q><emph>through all</emph></q>; +the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, <emph><q>in all</q> (Eph. 4:6)</emph>. The Holy Spirit has been +called <q>the executive of the Godhead.</q></q> Whiton is here speaking of the economic Trinity; +but all this is even more true of the immanent Trinity. On the Eternal Sonship, +see Weiss, Bib. Theol. N. T., 424, note; Treffrey, Eternal Sonship of our Lord; Princeton +Essays, 1:30-56; Watson, Institutes, 1:530-577; Bib. Sac., 27:268. On the procession +of the Spirit, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:300-304, and History of Doctrine, 1:387; +Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:347-350. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +The same principles upon which we interpret the declaration of Christ's +eternal Sonship apply to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father +through the Son, and show this to be not inconsistent with the Spirit's +equal dignity and glory. +</p> + +<p> +We therefore only formulate truth which is concretely expressed in +Scripture, and which is recognized by all ages of the church in hymns and +prayers addressed to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when we assert that in +the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions, which are +best described as persons, and each of which is the proper and equal object +of Christian worship. +</p> + +<p> +We are also warranted in declaring that, in virtue of these personal +distinctions or modes of subsistence, God exists in the relations, respectively, +first, of Source, Origin, Authority, and in this relation is the Father; +secondly, of Expression, Medium, Revelation, and in this relation is the +Son; thirdly, of Apprehension, Accomplishment, Realization, and in this +relation is the Holy Spirit. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +John Owen, Works, 3:64-92—<q>The office of the Holy Spirit is that of concluding, +completing, perfecting. To the Father we assign <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>opera naturæ</foreign>; to the Son, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>opera +gratiæ procuratæ</foreign>; to the Spirit, <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>opera gratiæ applicatæ</foreign>.</q> All God's revelations are +through the Son or the Spirit, and the latter includes the former. Kuyper, Work of +the Holy Spirit, designates the three offices respectively as those of Causation, Construction, +Consummation; the Father brings forth, the Son arranges, the Spirit perfects. +Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 365-373—<q>God is Life, Light, Love. As the Fathers +regarded Reason both in God and man as the personal, omnipresent second Person of +the Trinity, so Jonathan Edwards regarded Love both in God and in man as the personal, +omnipresent third Person of the Trinity. Hence the Father is never said to love +the Spirit as he is said to love the Son—for this love <emph>is</emph> the Spirit. The Father and the +Son are said to love men, but the Holy Spirit is never said to love them, for love <emph>is</emph> the +Holy Spirit. But why could not Edwards also hold that the Logos or divine Reason +also dwelt in humanity, so that manhood was constituted in Christ and shared with +him in the consubstantial image of the Father? Outward nature reflects God's light +and has Christ in it,—why not universal humanity?</q> +</p> + +<p> +Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 136, 202, speaks of <q>1. God, the Eternal, the +Infinite, in his infinity, as himself; 2. God, as self-expressed within the nature and +faculties of man—body, soul, and spirit—the consummation and interpretation and +revelation of what true manhood means and is, in its very truth, in its relation to God; +3. God, as Spirit of Beauty and Holiness, which are himself present in things created, +animate and inanimate, and constituting in them their divine response to God; constituting +above all in created personalities the full reality of their personal response. +Or again: 1. What a man is invisibly in himself; 2. his outward material projection or +expression as body; and 3. the response which that which he is through his bodily +utterance or operation makes to him, as the true echo or expression of himself.</q> Moberly +seeks thus to find in man's nature an analogy to the inner processes of the divine. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='344'/><anchor id='Pg344'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>VI. Inscrutable, yet not self-contradictory, this Doctrine furnishes +the Key to all other Doctrines.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. The mode of this triune existence is inscrutable.</head> + +<p> +It is inscrutable because there are no analogies to it in our finite experience. +For this reason all attempts are vain adequately to represent it; +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) From inanimate things—as the fountain, the stream, and the rivulet +trickling from it (Athanasius); the cloud, the rain, and the rising mist +(Boardman); color, shape, and size (F. W. Robertson); the actinic, luminiferous, +and calorific principles in the ray of light (Solar Hieroglyphics, +34). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Luther: <q>When logic objects to this doctrine that it does not square with her rules, +we must say; <q>Mulier taceat in ecclesia.</q></q> Luther called the Trinity a flower, in which +might be distinguished its form, its fragrance, and its medicinal efficacy; see Dorner, +Gesch. prot. Theol., 189. In Bap. Rev., July, 1880:434, Geer finds an illustration of the +Trinity in infinite space with its three dimensions. For analogy of the cloud, rain, +mist, see W. E. Boardman, Higher Christian Life. Solar Hieroglyphics, 34 (reviewed +in New Englander, Oct. 1874:789)—<q>The Godhead is a tripersonal unity, and the light +is a trinity. Being immaterial and homogeneous, and thus essentially one in its nature, +the light includes a plurality of constituents, or in other words is essentially three in +its constitution, its constituent principles being the actinic, the luminiferous, and the +calorific; and in glorious manifestation the light is one, and is the created, constituted, +and ordained emblem of the tripersonal God</q>—of whom it is said that <emph><q>God is light, and +in him is no darkness at all</q> (1 John 1:5)</emph>. The actinic rays are in themselves invisible; only as +the luminiferous manifest them, are they seen; only as the calorific accompany them, +are they felt. +</p> + +<p> +Joseph Cook: <q>Sunlight, rainbow, heat—one solar radiance; Father, Son, Holy Spirit, +one God. As the rainbow shows what light is when unfolded, so Christ reveals the +nature of God. As the rainbow is unraveled light, so Christ is unraveled God, and the +Holy Spirit, figured by heat, is Christ's continued life.</q> Ruder illustrations are those +of Oom Paul Krüger: the fat, the wick, the flame, in the candle; and of Augustine: +the root, trunk, branches, all of one wood, in the tree. In Geer's illustration, mentioned +above, from the three dimensions of space, we cannot demonstrate that there is not a +fourth, but besides length, breadth, and thickness, we cannot conceive of its existence. +As these three exhaust, so far as we know, all possible modes of material being, so we +cannot conceive of any fourth person in the Godhead. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) From the constitution or processes of our own minds—as the +psychological unity of intellect, affection, and will (substantially held by +Augustine); the logical unity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (Hegel); +the metaphysical unity of subject, object, and subject-object (Melanchthon, +Olshausen, Shedd). +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Augustine: <q>Mens meminit sui, intelligit se, diligit se; si hoc cernimus, Trinitatem +cernimus.</q>... I exist, I am conscious, I will; I exist as conscious and willing, I am +conscious of existing and willing, I will to exist and be conscious; and these three +functions, though distinct, are inseparable and form one life, one mind, one essence.... +<q>Amor autem alicujus amantis est, et amore aliquid amatur. Ecce tria sunt, +amans, et quod amatur, et amor. Quid est ergo amor, nisi quædam vita duo aliqua +copulans, vel copulare appetans, amantem scilicet et quod amatur.</q> Calvin speaks of +Augustine's view as <q>a speculation far from solid.</q> But Augustine himself had said: +<q>If asked to define the Trinity, we can only say that it is not this or that.</q> John of +Damascus: <q>All we know of the divine nature is that it is not to be known.</q> By this, +however, both Augustine and John of Damascus meant only that the precise <emph>mode</emph> of +God's triune existence is unrevealed and inscrutable. +</p> + +<p> +Hegel, Philos. Relig., transl., 3:99, 100—<q>God is, but is at the same time the Other, +the self-differentiating, the Other in the sense that this Other is God himself and has +potentially the Divine nature in it, and that the abolishing of this difference, of this +<pb n='345'/><anchor id='Pg345'/> +otherness, this return, this love, is Spirit.</q> Hegel calls God <q>the absolute Idea, the +unity of Life and Cognition, the Universal that thinks itself and thinkingly recognizes +itself in an infinite Actuality, from which, as its Immediacy, it no less distinguishes +itself again</q>; see Schwegler, History of Philosophy, 321, 331. Hegel's general doctrine +is that the highest unity is to be reached only through the fullest development and +reconciliation of the deepest and widest antagonism. Pure being is pure nothing; we +must die to live. Light is thesis, Darkness is antithesis, Shadow is synthesis, or union +of both. Faith is thesis, Unbelief is antithesis, Doubt is synthesis, or union of both. +<foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Zweifel</foreign> comes from <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Zwei</foreign>, as doubt from δύο. Hegel called Napoleon <q>ein Weltgeist zu +Pferde</q>—<q>a world-spirit on horseback.</q> Ladd, Introd. to Philosophy, 202, speaks of +<q>the monotonous tit-tat-too of the Hegelian logic.</q> Ruskin speaks of it as <q>pure, +definite, and highly finished nonsense.</q> On the Hegelian principle good and evil cannot +be contradictory to each other; without evil there could be no good. Stirling well +entitled his exposition of the Hegelian Philosophy <q>The Secret of Hegel,</q> and his +readers have often remarked that, if Stirling discovered the secret, he never made +it known. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Coleridge told Robert Browning that he could not understand all his poetry. +<q>Ah, well,</q> replied the poet, <q>if a reader of your calibre understands ten per cent. of +what I write, he ought to be content.</q> When Wordsworth was told that Mr. Browning +had married Miss Barrett, he said: <q>It is a good thing that these two understand each +other, for no one else understands them.</q> A pupil once brought to Hegel a passage in +the latter's writings and asked for an interpretation. The philosopher examined it and +replied: <q>When that passage was written, there were two who knew its meaning—God +and myself. Now, alas! there is but one, and that is God.</q> Heinrich Heine, speaking +of the effect of Hegelianism upon the religious life of Berlin, says: <q>I could +accommodate myself to the very enlightened Christianity, filtrated from all superstition, +which could then be had in the churches, and which was free from the divinity +of Christ, like turtle soup without turtle.</q> When German systems of philosophy die, +their ghosts take up their abode in Oxford. But if I see a ghost sitting in a chair and +then sit down boldly in the chair, the ghost will take offence and go away. Hegel's +doctrine of God as the only begotten Son is translated in the Journ. Spec. Philos., +15:395-404. +</p> + +<p> +The most satisfactory exposition of the analogy of subject, object, and subject-object +is to be found in Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:365, note 2. See also Olshausen on +John 1:1; H. N. Day, Doctrine of Trinity in Light of Recent Psychology, in Princeton Rev., +Sept. 1882:156-179; Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 122-163. Moberly, Atonement +and Personality, 174, has a similar analogy: 1. A man's invisible self; 2. the visible +expression of himself in a picture or poem; 3. the response of this picture or poem to +himself. The analogy of the family is held to be even better, because no man's personality +is complete in itself; husband, wife, and child are all needed to make perfect +unity. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 372, says that in the early church the Trinity was a +doctrine of reason; in the Middle Ages it was a mystery; in the 18th century it was +a meaningless or irrational dogma; again in the 19th century it becomes a doctrine of +the reason, a truth essential to the nature of God. To Allen's characterization of the +stages in the history of the doctrine we would add that even in our day we cannot say +that a complete exposition of the Trinity is possible. Trinity is a unique fact, different +aspects of which may be illustrated, while, as a whole, it has no analogies. The +most we can say is that human nature, in its processes and powers, points towards +something higher than itself, and that Trinity in God is needed in order to constitute +that perfection of being which man seeks as an object of love, worship and service. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +No one of these furnishes any proper analogue of the Trinity, since in +no one of them is there found the essential element of tripersonality. Such +illustrations may sometimes be used to disarm objection, but they furnish +no positive explanation of the mystery of the Trinity, and, unless carefully +guarded, may lead to grievous error. +</p> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. The Doctrine of the Trinity is not self-contradictory.</head> + +<p> +This it would be, only if it declared God to be three in the same numerical +sense in which he is said to be one. This we do not assert. We assert +simply that the same God who is one with respect to his essence is three +<pb n='346'/><anchor id='Pg346'/> +with respect to the internal distinctions of that essence, or with respect to +the modes of his being. The possibility of this cannot be denied, except +by assuming that the human mind is in all respects the measure of the +divine. +</p> + +<p> +The fact that the ascending scale of life is marked by increasing differentiation +of faculty and function should rather lead us to expect in the highest +of all beings a nature more complex than our own. In man many faculties +are united in one intelligent being, and the more intelligent man is, the +more distinct from each other these faculties become; until intellect and +affection, conscience and will assume a relative independence, and there +arises even the possibility of conflict between them. There is nothing irrational +or self-contradictory in the doctrine that in God the leading functions +are yet more markedly differentiated, so that they become personal, while +at the same time these personalities are united by the fact that they each +and equally manifest the one indivisible essence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Unity is as essential to the Godhead as threeness. The same God who in one respect +is three, in another respect is one. We do not say that one God is three Gods, nor that +one person is three persons, nor that three Gods are one God, but only that there is one +God with three distinctions in his being. We do not refer to the faculties of man as +furnishing any proper analogy to the persons of the Godhead; we rather deny that +man's nature furnishes any such analogy. Intellect, affection, and will in man are not +distinct personalities. If they were personalized, they might furnish such an analogy. +F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3:58, speaks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as best +conceived under the figure of personalized intellect, affection and will. With this +agrees the saying of Socrates, who called thought the soul's conversation with itself. +See D. W. Simon, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1887. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 86:11—<q>Unite my heart to fear thy name</q></emph>—intimates a complexity of powers in man, and +a possible disorganization due to sin. Only the fear and love of God can reduce our +faculties to order and give us peace, purity, and power. When William after a long +courtship at length proposed marriage, Mary said that she <q>unanimously consented.</q> +<emph><q>Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy +mind</q> (Luke 10:27).</emph> Man must not lead a dual life, a double life, like that of Dr. Jekyll +and Mr. Hyde. The good life is the unified life. H. H. Bawden: <q>Theoretically, symmetrical +development is the complete criterion. This is the old Greek conception of +the perfect life. The term which we translate <q>temperance</q> or <q>self-control</q> is better +expressed by <q>whole-mindedness.</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +Illingworth, Personality Divine and Human, 54-80—<q>Our sense of divine personality +culminates in the doctrine of the Trinity. Man's personality is essentially triune, +because it consists of a subject, an object, and their relation. What is potential and +unrealized triunity in man is complete in God.... Our own personality is triune, but +it is a potential unrealized triunity, which is incomplete in itself and must go beyond +itself for completion, as for example in the family.... But God's personality has +nothing potential or unrealized about it.... Trinity is the most intelligible mode of +conceiving of God as personal.</q> +</p> + +<p> +John Caird, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, 1:59, 80—<q>The parts of a stone are +all precisely alike; the parts of a skilful mechanism are all different from one another. +In which of the two cases is the unity more real—in that in which there is an absence +of distinction, or in that in which there is essential difference of form and function, +each separate part having an individuality and activity of its own? The highest +unities are not simple but complex.</q> Gordon, Christ of To-day, 106—<q>All things and +persons are modes of one infinite consciousness. Then it is not incredible that there +should be three consciousnesses in God. Over against the multitudinous finite personalities +are three infinite personalities. This socialism in Deity may be the ground +of human society.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The phenomena of double and even of triple consciousness in one and the same individual +confirm this view. This fact of more than one consciousness in a finite creature +points towards the possibility of a threefold consciousness in the nature of God. +Romanes, Mind and Motion, 102, intimates that the social organism, if it attained the +<pb n='347'/><anchor id='Pg347'/> +highest level of psychical perfection, might be endowed with personality, and that it +now has something resembling it—phenomena of thought and conduct which compel +us to conceive of families and communities and nations as having a sort of moral +personality which implies responsibility and accountability. <q>The <foreign lang='de' rend='italic'>Zeitgeist</foreign>,</q> he +says, <q>is the product of a kind of collective psychology, which is something other than +the sum of all the individual minds of a generation.</q> We do not maintain that any +one of these fragmentary or collective consciousnesses attains personality in man, at +least in the present life. We only maintain that they indicate that a larger and more +complex life is possible than that of which we have common experience, and that +there is no necessary contradiction in the doctrine that in the nature of the one and +perfect God there are three personal distinctions. R. H. Hutton: <q>A voluntary self-revelation +of the divine mind may be expected to reveal even deeper complexities of +spiritual relations in his eternal nature and essence than are found to exist in our +humanity—the simplicity of a harmonized complexity, not the simplicity of absolute +unity.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. The doctrine of the Trinity has important relations to other doctrines.</head> + +<p> +A. It is essential to any proper theism. +</p> + +<p> +Neither God's independence nor God's blessedness can be maintained +upon grounds of absolute unity. Anti-trinitarianism almost necessarily +makes creation indispensable to God's perfection, tends to a belief in the +eternity of matter, and ultimately leads, as in Mohammedanism, and in +modern Judaism and Unitarianism, to Pantheism. <q>Love is an impossible +exercise to a solitary being.</q> Without Trinity we cannot hold to a living +Unity in the Godhead. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Brit. and For. Evang. Rev., Jan. 1882:35-63—<q>The problem is to find a <emph>perfect objective</emph>, +congruous and fitting, for a perfect intelligence, and the answer is: <q><emph>a perfect +intelligence</emph>.</q></q> The author of this article quotes James Martineau, the Unitarian philosopher, +as follows: <q>There is only one resource left for completing the needful +Objectivity for God, <hi rend='italic'>viz.</hi>, to admit in some form the coëval existence of matter, as the +condition or medium of the divine agency or manifestation. Failing the proof [of the +absolute origination of matter] we are left with the <emph>divine cause</emph>, and the <emph>material condition</emph> +of all nature, in eternal co-presence and relation, as supreme object and rudimentary +object.</q> See also Martineau, Study, 1:405—<q>In denying that a plurality of +self-existences is possible, I mean to speak only of self-existent <emph>causes</emph>. A self-existence +which is <emph>not</emph> a cause is by no means excluded, so far as I can see, by a self-existence +which <emph>is</emph> a cause; nay, is even required for the exercise of its causality.</q> Here we see +that Martineau's Unitarianism logically drove him into Dualism. But God's blessedness, +upon this principle, requires not merely an eternal universe but an infinite universe, +for nothing less will afford fit object for an infinite mind. Yet a God who is +necessarily bound to the universe, or by whose side a universe, which is not himself, +eternally exists, is not infinite, independent, or free. The only exit from this difficulty +is in denying God's self-consciousness and self-determination, or in other words, +exchanging our theism for dualism, and our dualism for pantheism. +</p> + +<p> +E. H. Johnson, in Bib. Sac., July, 1892:379, quotes from Oxenham's Catholic Doctrine +of the Atonement, 108, 109—<q>Forty years ago James Martineau wrote to George Macdonald: +<q>Neither my intellectual preference nor my moral admiration goes heartily with +the Unitarian heroes, sects or productions, of any age. Ebionites, Arians, Socinians, +all seem to me to contrast unfavorably with their opponents, and to exhibit a type of +thought far less worthy, on the whole, of the true genius of Christianity.</q> In his paper +entitled A Way out of the Unitarian Controversy, Martineau says that the Unitarian +worships the Father; the Trinitarian worships the Son: <q>But he who is the Son in one +creed is the Father in the other.... The two creeds are agreed in that which constitutes +the pith and kernel of both. The Father is God in his primeval essence. But God, as +manifested, is the Son.</q></q> Dr. Johnson adds: <q>So Martineau, after a lifelong service in +a Unitarian pulpit and professorship, at length publicly accepts for truth the substance +of that doctrine which, in common with the church, he has found so profitable, and +tells Unitarians that they and we alike worship the Son, because all that we know of +<pb n='348'/><anchor id='Pg348'/> +God was revealed by act of the Son.</q> After he had reached his eightieth year, Martineau +withdrew from the Unitarian body, though he never formally united with any +Trinitarian church. +</p> + +<p> +H. C. Minton, in Princeton Rev., 1903:655-659, has quoted some of Martineau's most +significant utterances, such as the following: <q>The great strength of the orthodox +doctrine lies, no doubt, in the appeal it makes to the inward <q>sense of sin,</q>—that sad +weight whose burden oppresses every serious soul. And the great weakness of Unitarianism +has been its insensibility to this abiding sorrow of the human consciousness. +But the orthodox remedy is surely the most terrible of all mistakes, <hi rend='italic'>viz.</hi>, <emph>to get rid</emph> of +the burden, by throwing it on Christ or permitting him to take it.... For myself I +own that the literature to which I turn for the nurture and inspiration of Faith, Hope +and Love is almost exclusively the product of orthodox versions of the Christian +religion. The Hymns of the Wesleys, the Prayers of the Friends, the Meditations of +Law and Tauler, have a quickening and elevating power which I rarely feel in the +books on our Unitarian shelves.... Yet I can less than ever appropriate, or even +intellectually excuse, any distinctive article of the Trinitarian scheme of salvation.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Whiton, Gloria Patri, 23-26, seeks to reconcile the two forms of belief by asserting +that <q>both Trinitarians and Unitarians are coming to regard human nature as essentially +one with the divine. The Nicene Fathers builded better than they knew, when +they declared Christ <foreign lang='el' rend='italic'>homoousios</foreign> with the Father. We assert the same of mankind.</q> +But here Whiton goes beyond the warrant of Scripture. Of none but the only begotten +Son can it be said that before Abraham was born he was, and that in him dwelleth +all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (<emph>John 8:57</emph>; <emph>Col. 2:9</emph>). +</p> + +<p> +Unitarianism has repeatedly demonstrated its logical insufficiency by this <q>facilis +descensus Averno,</q> this lapse from theism into pantheism. In New England the high +Arianism of Channing degenerated into the half-fledged pantheism of Theodore Parker, +and the full-fledged pantheism of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Modern Judaism is pantheistic +in its philosophy, and such also was the later Arabic philosophy of Mohammedanism. +Single personality is felt to be insufficient to the mind's conception of Absolute +Perfection. We shrink from the thought of an eternally lonely God. <q>We take +refuge in the term <q>Godhead.</q> The literati find relief in speaking of <q>the gods.</q></q> +Twesten (translated in Bib. Sac., 3:502)—<q>There may be in polytheism an element of +truth, though disfigured and misunderstood. John of Damascus boasted that the +Christian Trinity stood midway between the abstract monotheism of the Jews and the +idolatrous polytheism of the Greeks.</q> Twesten, quoted in Shedd, Dogm. Theology, +1:255—<q>There is a πλήρωμα in God. Trinity does not contradict Unity, but only that +solitariness which is inconsistent with the living plenitude and blessedness ascribed to +God in Scripture, and which God possesses in himself and independently of the finite.</q> +Shedd himself remarks: <q>The attempt of the Deist and the Socinian to construct the +doctrine of divine <emph>Unity</emph> is a failure, because it fails to construct the doctrine of the +divine <emph>Personality</emph>. It contends by implication that God can be self-knowing as a +single subject merely, without an object; without the distinctions involved in the subject +contemplating, the object contemplated, and the perception of the identity of both.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 75—<q>God is no sterile and motionless unit.</q> Bp. Phillips +Brooks: <q>Unitarianism has got the notion of God as tight and individual as it is +possible to make it, and is dying of its meagre Deity.</q> Unitarianism is not the doctrine +of one God—for the Trinitarian holds to this; it is rather the unipersonality of this one +God. The divine nature demands either an eternal Christ or an eternal creation. Dr. +Calthorp, the Unitarian, of Syracuse, therefore consistently declares that <q>Nature and +God are the same.</q> It is the old worship of Baal and Ashtaroth—the deification of +power and pleasure. For <q>Nature</q> includes everything—all bad impulses as well as +good. When a man discovers gravity, he has not discovered God, but only one of the +manifestations of God. +</p> + +<p> +Gordon, Christ of To-day, 112—<q>The supreme divinity of Jesus Christ is but the +sovereign expression in human history of the great law of difference in identity that +runs through the entire universe and that has its home in the heart of the Godhead.</q> +Even James Freeman Clarke, in his Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, 436, admits that +<q>there is an essential truth hidden in the idea of the Trinity. While the church doctrine, +in every form which it has taken, has failed to satisfy the human intellect, the +human heart has clung to the substance contained in them all.</q> William Adams +Brown: <q>If God is by nature love, he must be by nature social. Fatherhood and Sonship +must be immanent in him. In him the limitations of finite personality are +removed.</q> But Dr. Brown wrongly adds: <q>Not the mysteries of God's being, as he is +<pb n='349'/><anchor id='Pg349'/> +in himself, but as he is revealed, are opened to us in this doctrine.</q> Similarly P. S. +Moxom: <q>I do not know how it is possible to predicate any moral quality of a person +who is absolutely out of relation to other persons. If God were conceived of as solitary +in the universe, he could not be characterized as righteous.</q> But Dr. Moxom erroneously +thinks that these other moral personalities must be outside of God. We maintain +that righteousness, like love, requires only plurality of persons within the +God-head. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:105, 156. For the pantheistic +view, see Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1:462-524. +</p> + +<p> +W. L. Walker, Christian Theism, 317, quotes Dr. Paul Carus, Primer of Philosophy, +101—<q>We cannot even conceive of God without attributing trinity to him. An absolute +unity would be non-existence. God, if thought of as real and active, involves +an antithesis, which may be formulated as God and World, or <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura naturans</foreign> and +<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>natura naturata</foreign>, or in some other way. This antithesis implies already the trinity-conception. +When we think of God, not only as that which is eternal and immutable in +existence, but also as that which changes, grows, and evolves, we cannot escape the result +and we must progress to a triune God-idea. The conception of a God-man, of a Savior, +of God revealed in evolution, brings out the antithesis of God Father and God Son, and +the very conception of this relation implies God the Spirit that proceeds from both.</q> +This confession of an economic Trinity is a rational one only as it implies a Trinity +immanent and eternal. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. It is essential to any proper revelation. +</p> + +<p> +If there be no Trinity, Christ is not God, and cannot perfectly know or +reveal God. Christianity is no longer the one, all-inclusive, and final revelation, +but only one of many conflicting and competing systems, each of +which has its portion of truth, but also its portion of error. So too with +the Holy Spirit. <q>As God can be revealed only through God, so also can +he be appropriated only through God. If the Holy Spirit be not God, +then the love and self-communication of God to the human soul are not a +reality.</q> In other words, without the doctrine of the Trinity we go back +to mere natural religion and the far-off God of deism,—and this is ultimately +exchanged for pantheism in the way already mentioned. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Martensen, Dogmatics, 104; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 156. If Christ be +not God, he cannot perfectly know himself, and his testimony to himself has no independent +authority. In prayer the Christian has practical evidence of the Trinity, and +can see the value of the doctrine; for he comes to God the Father, pleading the name +of Christ, and taught how to pray aright by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to identify +the Father with either the Son or the Spirit. See <emph>Rom. 8:27—<q rend='pre'>he that searcheth the hearts</q></emph> +[<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, God] <emph><q rend='post'>knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of +God.</q></emph> See also Godet on <emph>John 1:18—<q>No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the +bosom of the Father, he hath declared him</q></emph>; notice here the relation between ὁ ὤν and ἐξηγήσατο. +Napoleon I: <q>Christianity says with simplicity, <q>No man hath seen God, except God.</q></q> +<emph>John 16:15—<q>All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it +unto you</q></emph>; here Christ claims for himself all that belongs to God, and then declares that +the Holy Spirit shall reveal him. Only a divine Spirit can do this, even as only a divine +Christ can put out an unpresumptuous hand to take all that belongs to the Father. +See also Westcott, on <emph>John 14:9—<q>he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the +Father?</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +The agnostic is perfectly correct in his conclusions, if there be no Christ, no medium +of communication, no principle of revelation in the Godhead. Only the Son has revealed +the Father. Even Royce, in his Spirit of Modern Philosophy, speaks of the existence +of an infinite Self, or Logos, or World-mind, of which all individual minds are parts or +bits, and of whose timeless choice we partake. Some such principle in the divine +nature must be assumed, if Christianity is the complete and sufficient revelation of +God's will to men. The Unitarian view regards the religion of Christ as only <q>one of +the day's works of humanity</q>—an evanescent moment in the ceaseless advance of the +race. The Christian on the other hand regards Christ as the only Revealer of God, the +only God with whom we have to do, the final authority in religion, the source of all +truth and the judge of all mankind. <emph><q>Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass +<pb n='350'/><anchor id='Pg350'/> +away</q> (Mat. 24:35).</emph> The resurrection of just and unjust shall be his work (<emph>John 5:28</emph>), and +future retribution shall be <emph><q>the wrath of the Lamb</q> (Rev. 6:16)</emph>. Since God never thinks, says, +or does any thing, except through Christ, and since Christ does his work in human +hearts only through the Holy Spirit, we may conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity +is essential to any proper revelation. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +C. It is essential to any proper redemption. +</p> + +<p> +If God be absolutely and simply one, there can be no mediation or atonement, +since between God and the most exalted creature the gulf is infinite. +Christ cannot bring us nearer to God than he is himself. Only one who is +God can reconcile us to God. So, too, only one who is God can purify our +souls. A God who is only unity, but in whom is no plurality, may be our +Judge, but, so far as we can see, cannot be our Savior or our Sanctifier. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +<q>God is the way to himself.</q> <q>Nothing human holds good before God, and nothing +but God himself can satisfy God.</q> The best method of arguing with Unitarians, therefore, +is to rouse the sense of sin; for the soul that has any proper conviction of its sins +feels that only an infinite Redeemer can ever save it. On the other hand, a slight estimate +of sin is logically connected with a low view of the dignity of Christ. Twesten, +translated in Bib. Sac., 3:510—<q>It would seem to be not a mere accident that Pelagianism, +when logically carried out, as for example among the Socinians, has also always +led to Unitarianism.</q> In the reverse order, too, it is manifest that rejection of the +deity of Christ must tend to render more superficial men's views of the sin and guilt +and punishment from which Christ came to save them, and with this to deaden religious +feeling and to cut the sinews of all evangelistic and missionary effort (<emph>John 12:44</emph>; <emph>Heb. +10:26</emph>). See Arthur, on the Divinity of our Lord in relation to his work of Atonement, +in Present Day Tracts, 6: no. 35; Ellis, quoted by Watson, Theol. Inst., 23; Gunsaulus, +Transfig. of Christ, 13—<q>We have tried to see God in the light of nature, while he said: +<emph><q>In thy light shall we see light</q> (Ps. 36:9)</emph>.</q> We should see nature in the light of Christ. Eternal +life is attained only through the knowledge of God in Christ (<emph>John 16:9</emph>). Hence to +accept Christ is to accept God; to reject Christ is to turn one's back on God: <emph>John 12:44—<q>He +that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me</q></emph>; <emph>Heb. 10:26, 29—<q rend='pre'>there remaineth no +more a sacrifice for sin</q></emph> ... [for him] <emph><q rend='post'>who hath trodden under foot the Son of God.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +In The Heart of Midlothian, Jeanie Deans goes to London to secure pardon for her +sister. She cannot in her peasant attire go direct to the King, for he will not receive +her. She goes to a Scotch housekeeper in London; through him to the Duke of Argyle; +through him to the Queen; through the Queen she gets pardon from the King, whom +she never sees. This was mediæval mediatorship. But now we come directly to Christ, +and this suffices us, because he is himself God (The Outlook). A man once went into +the cell of a convicted murderer, at the request of the murderer's wife and pleaded +with him to confess his crime and accept Christ, but the murderer refused. The seeming +clergyman was the Governor, with a pardon which he had designed to bestow in +case he found the murderer penitent. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 86—<q>I have +heard that, during our Civil War, a swaggering, drunken, blaspheming officer insulted +and almost drove from the dock at Alexandria, a plain unoffending man in citizen's +dress; but I have also heard that that same officer turned pale, fell on his knees, and +begged for mercy, when the plain man demanded his sword, put him under arrest and +made himself known as General Grant. So we may abuse and reject the Lord Jesus +Christ, and fancy that we can ignore his claims and disobey his commands with +impunity; but it will seem a more serious thing when we find at the last that he whom +we have abused and rejected is none other than the living God before whose judgment +bar we are to stand.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Henry B. Smith began life under Unitarian influences, and had strong prejudices +against evangelical doctrine, especially the doctrines of human depravity and of the +divinity of Christ. In his Senior year in College he was converted. Cyrus Hamlin +says: <q>I regard Smith's conversion as the most remarkable event in College in my +day.</q> Doubts of depravity vanished with one glimpse into his own heart; and doubts +about Christ's divinity could not hold their own against the confession: <q>Of one thing +I feel assured: I need an infinite Savior.</q> Here is the ultimate strength of Trinitarian +doctrine. When the Holy Spirit convinces a man of his sin, and brings him face to +face with the outraged holiness and love of God, he is moved to cry from the depths of +his soul: <q>None but an infinite Savior can ever save me!</q> Only in a divine Christ—Christ +<pb n='351'/><anchor id='Pg351'/> +<emph>for</emph> us upon the Cross, and Christ <emph>in</emph> us by his Spirit—can the convicted soul find +peace and rest. And so every revival of true religion gives a new impulse to the Trinitarian +doctrine. Henry B. Smith wrote in his later life: <q>When the doctrine of the +Trinity was abandoned, other articles of the faith, such as the atonement and regeneration, +have almost always followed, by logical necessity, as, when one draws the wire +from a necklace of gems, the gems all fall asunder.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +D. It is essential to any proper model for human life. +</p> + +<p> +If there be no Trinity immanent in the divine nature, then Fatherhood +in God has had a beginning and it may have an end; Sonship, moreover, +is no longer a perfection, but an imperfection, ordained for a temporary +purpose. But if fatherly giving and filial receiving are eternal in God, +then the law of love requires of us conformity to God in both these respects +as the highest dignity of our being. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +See Hutton, Essays, 1:232—<q>The Trinity tells us something of God's absolute and +essential nature; not simply what he is <emph>to us</emph>, but what he is <emph>in himself</emph>. If Christ is the +eternal Son of the Father, God is indeed and in essence a Father; the social nature, the +spring of love is of the very essence of the eternal Being; the communication of life, +the reciprocation of affection dates from beyond time, belongs to the very being of God. +The Unitarian idea of a solitary God profoundly affects our conception of God, reduces +it to mere power, identifies God with abstract cause and thought. Love is grounded +in power, not power in love. The Father is merged in the omniscient and omnipotent +genius of the universe.</q> Hence <emph>1 John 2:23—<q>Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.</q></emph> +D'Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 204—<q>If God be simply one great person, then we +have to think of him as waiting until the whole process of creation has been accomplished +before his love can find an object upon which to bestow itself. His love belongs, +in that case, not to his inmost essence, but to his relation to some of his creatures. The +words <emph><q>God is love</q> (1 John 4:8)</emph> become a rhetorical exaggeration, rather than the expression +of a truth about the divine nature.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Hutton, Essays, 1:239—<q>We need also the inspiration and help of a perfect filial +will. We cannot conceive of the Father as sharing in that dependent attitude of spirit +which is our chief spiritual want. It is a Father's perfection to originate—a Son's to +receive. We need sympathy and aid in this <emph>receptive</emph> life; hence, the help of the true +Son. Humility, self-sacrifice, submission, are heavenly, eternal, divine. Christ's filial +life to the root of all filial life in us. See <emph>Gal. 2:19, 20—<q>it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth +in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave +himself up for me.</q></emph></q> Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, The Spiritual Order, 233—<q>There is +nothing degrading in this dependence, for we share it with the eternal Son.</q> Gore, +Incarnation, 162—<q>God can limit himself by the conditions of manhood, because the +Godhead contains in itself eternally the prototype of human self-sacrifice and self-limitation, +for God is love.</q> On the practical lessons and uses of the doctrine of the +Trinity, see Presb. and Ref. Rev., Oct 1902:524-550—art. by R. M. Edgar; also sermon +by Ganse, in South Church Lectures, 300-310. On the doctrine in general, see Robie, in +Bib. Sac., 27:262-289; Pease, Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine; N. W. Taylor, Revealed +Theology, 1:133; Schultz, Lehre von der Gottheit Christi. +</p> + +<p> +On heathen trinities, see Bib. Repos., 6:116; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian +Belief, 266, 267—<q>Lao-tse says, 600 B. C., <q>Tao, the intelligent principle of all being, is +by nature one; the first begat the second; both together begat the third; these three +made all things.</q></q> The Egyptian triad of Abydos was Osiris, Isis his wife, and Horus +their Son. But these were no true persons; for not only did the Son proceed from the +Father, but the Father proceeded from the Son; the Egyptian trinity was pantheistic +in its meaning. See Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 29; Rawlinson, Religions of the Ancient +World, 46, 47. The Trinity of the Vedas was Dyaus, Indra, Agni. Derived from the +three dimensions of space? Or from the family—father, mother, son? Man creates +God in his own image, and sees family life in the Godhead? +</p> + +<p> +The Brahman Trimurti or Trinity, to the members of which are given the names +Brahma, Vishnu, Siva—source, supporter, end—is a personification of the pantheistic +All, which dwells equally in good and evil, in god and man. The three are represented +in the three mystic letters of the syllable <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Om</foreign>, or <foreign lang='sa' rend='italic'>Aum</foreign>, and by the image at Elephanta +of three heads and one body; see Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, 1:276. The +<pb n='352'/><anchor id='Pg352'/> +places of the three are interchangeable. Williams: <q>In the three persons the one God +is shown; Each first in place, each last, not one alone; Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each +may be, First, second, third, among the blessed three.</q> There are ten incarnations of +Vishnu for men's salvation in various times of need; and the one Spirit which temporarily +invests itself with the qualities of matter is reduced to its original essence at the +end of the æon (Kalpa). This is only a grosser form of Sabellianism, or of a modal +Trinity. According to Renouf it is not older than A. D. 1400. Buddhism in later times +had its triad. Buddha, or Intelligence, the first principle, associated with Dharma, +or Law, the principle of matter, through the combining influence of Sangha, or Order, +the mediating principle. See Kellogg, The Light of Asia and the Light of the World, +184, 355. It is probably from a Christian source. +</p> + +<p> +The Greek trinity was composed of Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. Apollo or Loxias +(λόγος) utters the decisions of Zeus. <q>These three surpass all the other gods in moral +character and in providential care over the universe. They sustain such intimate and +endearing relations to each other, that they may be said to <q>agree in one</q></q>; see Tyler, +Theol. of Greek Poets, 170, 171; Gladstone, Studies of Homer, vol. 2, sec. 2. Yet the +Greek trinity, while it gives us three persons, does not give us oneness of essence. It +is a system of tritheism. Plotinus, 300 A. D., gives us a philosophical Trinity in his τὸ +ἔν, ὁ νοῦς, ἡ ψυχή. +</p> + +<p> +Watts, New Apologetic, 195—The heathen trinities are <q>residuary fragments of the +lost knowledge of God, not different stages in a process of theological evolution, but +evidence of a moral and spiritual degradation.</q> John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, +92—<q>In the Vedas the various individual divinities are separated by no hard and +fast distinction from each other. They are only names for one indivisible whole, of +which the particular divinity invoked at any one time is the type or representative. +There is a latent recognition of a unity beneath all the multiplicity of the objects of +adoration. The personal or anthropomorphic element is never employed as it is in the +Greek and Roman mythology. The personality ascribed to Mitra or Varuna or Indra +or Agni is scarcely more real than our modern smiling heaven or whispering breeze or +sullen moaning restless sea. <q>There is but one,</q> they say, <q>though the poets call him by +different names.</q> The all-embracing heaven, mighty nature, is the reality behind each of +these partial manifestations. The pantheistic element which was implicit in the Vedic +phase of Indian religion becomes explicit in Brahmanism, and in particular in the so-called +Indian systems of philosophy and in the great Indian epic poems. They seek +to find in the flux and variety of things the permanent underlying essence. That is +Brahma. So Spinoza sought rest in the one eternal substance, and he wished to look at +all things <q>under the form of eternity.</q> All things and beings are forms of one whole, +of the infinite substance which we call God.</q> See also L. L. Paine, Ethnic Trinities. +</p> + +<p> +The gropings of the heathen religions after a trinity in God, together with their +inability to construct a consistent scheme of it, are evidence of a rational want in +human nature which only the Christian doctrine is able to supply. This power to satisfy +the inmost needs of the believer is proof of its truth. We close our treatment with +the words of Jeremy Taylor: <q>He who goes about to speak of the mystery of the +Trinity, and does it by words and names of man's invention, talking of essence and +existences, hypostases and personalities, priority in coëquality, and unity in pluralities, +may amuse himself and build a tabernacle in his head, and talk something—he +knows not what; but the renewed man, that feels the power of the Father, to whom +the Son is become wisdom, sanctification, and redemption, in whose heart the love of +the Spirit of God is shed abroad—this man, though he understand nothing of what is +unintelligible, yet he alone truly understands the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<pb n='353'/><anchor id='Pg353'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>Chapter III. The Decrees Of God.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>I. Definition of Decrees.</head> + +<p> +By the decrees of God we mean that eternal plan by which God has +rendered certain all the events of the universe, past, present, and future. +Notice in explanation that: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) The decrees are many only to our finite comprehension; in their +own nature they are but one plan, which embraces not only effects but also +causes, not only the ends to be secured but also the means needful to +secure them. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +In <emph>Rom. 8:28—<q>called according to his purpose</q></emph>—the many decrees for the salvation of many +individuals are represented as forming but one purpose of God. <emph>Eph. 1:11—<q>foreordained +according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will</q></emph>—notice again the word +<q><emph>purpose</emph>,</q> in the singular. <emph>Eph. 3:11—<q>according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our +Lord.</q></emph> This one purpose or plan of God includes both means and ends, prayer and its +answer, labor and its fruit. Tyrolese proverb: <q>God has his plan for every man.</q> +Every man, as well as Jean Paul, is <q>der Einzige</q>—the unique. There is a single plan +which embraces all things; <q>we use the word <q>decree</q> when we think of it partitively</q> +(Pepper). See Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 1st ed., 165; 2d ed., 200—<q>In fact, no event +is isolated—to determine one involves determination of the whole concatenation of +causes and effects which constitutes the universe.</q> The word <q>plan</q> is preferable to +the word <q>decrees,</q> because <q>plan</q> excludes the ideas of (1) plurality, (2) short-sightedness, +(3) arbitrariness, (4) compulsion. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The decrees, as the eternal act of an infinitely perfect will, though +they have logical relations to each other, have no chronological relation. +They are not therefore the result of deliberation, in any sense that implies +short-sightedness or hesitancy. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Logically, in God's decree the sun precedes the sunlight, and the decree to bring into +being a father precedes the decree that there shall be a son. God decrees man before +he decrees man's act; he decrees the creation of man before he decrees man's existence. +But there is no chronological succession. <q><emph>Counsel</emph></q> in <emph>Eph. 1:11—<q>the counsel of his will</q></emph>—means, +not deliberation, but wisdom. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) Since the will in which the decrees have their origin is a free will, +the decrees are not a merely instinctive or necessary exercise of the divine +intelligence or volition, such as pantheism supposes. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It belongs to the perfection of God that he have a plan, and the best possible plan. +Here is no necessity, but only the certainty that infinite wisdom will act wisely. God's +decrees are not God; they are not identical with his essence; they do not flow from +his being in the same necessary way in which the eternal Son proceeds from the eternal +Father. There is free will in God, which acts with infinite certainty, yet without necessity. +To call even the decree of salvation necessary is to deny grace, and to make an +unfree God. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:355; lect. 34. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) The decrees have reference to things outside of God. God does not +decree to be holy, nor to exist as three persons in one essence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Decrees are the preparation for external events—the embracing of certain things +and acts in a plan. They do not include those processes and operations within the Godhead +which have no reference to the universe. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='354'/><anchor id='Pg354'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) The decrees primarily respect the acts of God himself, in Creation, +Providence, and Grace; secondarily, the acts of free creatures, which he +foresees will result therefrom. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +While we deny the assertion of Whedon, that <q>the divine plan embraces <emph>only</emph> divine +actions,</q> we grant that God's plan has reference <emph>primarily</emph> to his own actions, and that +the sinful acts of men, in particular, are the objects, not of a decree that God will +efficiently produce them, but of a decree that God will permit men, in the exercise of +their own free will, to produce them. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>f</hi>) The decree to act is not the act. The decrees are an internal exercise +and manifestation of the divine attributes, and are not to be confounded +with Creation, Providence, and Redemption, which are the execution of the +decrees. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The decrees are the first operation of the attributes, and the first manifestation of +personality of which we have any knowledge within the Godhead. They presuppose +those essential acts or movements within the divine nature which we call generation +and procession. They involve by way of consequence that execution of the decrees +which we call Creation, Providence, and Redemption, but they are not to be confounded +with either of these. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>g</hi>) The decrees are therefore not addressed to creatures; are not of the +nature of statute law; and lay neither compulsion nor obligation upon the +wills of men. +</p> + +<p> +So ordering the universe that men <emph>will</emph> pursue a given course of action is a very +different thing from declaring, ordering, or commanding that they <emph>shall</emph>. <q>Our acts +are in accordance with the decrees, but not <emph>necessarily</emph> so—we <emph>can</emph> do otherwise and +often <emph>should</emph></q> (Park). The Frenchman who fell into the water and cried: <q>I will, +drown,—no one shall help me!</q> was very naturally permitted to drown; if he had +said: <q>I shall drown,—no one will help me!</q> he might perchance have called some +friendly person to his aid. +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>h</hi>) All human acts, whether evil or good, enter into the divine plan and +so are objects of God's decrees, although God's actual agency with regard +to the evil is only a permissive agency. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +No decree of God reads: <q>You shall sin.</q> For (1) no decree is addressed to <emph>you</emph>; +(2) no decree with respect to you says <emph>shall</emph>; (3) God cannot cause <emph>sin</emph>, or decree to +cause it. He simply decrees to create, and himself to act, in such a way that you will, +of your own free choice, commit sin. God determines upon his own acts, foreseeing +what the results will be in the free acts of his creatures, and so he determines those +results. This permissive decree is the only decree of God with respect to sin. Man of +himself is capable of producing sin. Of himself he is not capable of producing holiness. +In the production of holiness two powers must concur, God's will and man's will, and +God's will must act first. The decree of good, therefore, is not simply a permissive +decree, as in the case of evil. God's decree, in the former case, is a decree to bring to +bear positive agencies for its production, such as circumstances, motives, influences of +his Spirit. But, in the case of evil, God's decrees are simply his arrangement that man +may do as he pleases, God all the while foreseeing the result. +</p> + +<p> +Permissive agency should not be confounded with conditional agency, nor permissive +decree with conditional decree. God foreordained sin only indirectly. The machine +is constructed not for the sake of the friction, but in spite of it. In the parable <emph>Mat. +13:24-30</emph>, the question <q><emph>Whence then hath it tares?</emph></q> is answered, not by saying, <q>I decreed the +tares.</q> but by saying: <q><emph>An enemy hath done this</emph>.</q> Yet we must take exception to Principal +Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Theology, 456, when he says: <q>God did not <emph>permit</emph> sin to +be; it is, in its essence, the transgression of his law, and so his only attitude toward it +is one of opposition. It <emph>is</emph>, because man has contradicted and resisted his will.</q> Here +the truth of God's opposition to sin is stated so sharply as almost to deny the decree of +sin in any sense. We maintain that God does decree sin in the sense of embracing in +his plan the foreseen transgressions of men, while at the same time we maintain that +these foreseen transgressions are chargeable wholly to men and not at all to God. +</p> + +</quote> + +<pb n='355'/><anchor id='Pg355'/> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>i</hi>) While God's total plan with regard to creatures is called predestination, +or foreordination, his purpose so to act that certain will believe and +be saved is called election, and his purpose so to act that certain will refuse +to believe and be lost is called reprobation. We discuss election and reprobation, +in a later chapter, as a part of the Application of Redemption. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God's decrees may be divided into decrees with respect to nature, and decrees with +respect to moral beings. These last we call foreordination, or predestination; and of +these decrees with respect to moral beings there are two kinds, the decree of election, +and the decree of reprobation; see our treatment of the doctrine of Election. George +Herbert: <q>We all acknowledge both thy power and love To be exact, transcendent, +and divine; Who dost so strongly and so sweetly move. While all things have their will—yet +none but thine. For either thy <emph>command</emph> or thy <emph>permission</emph> Lays hands on all; +they are thy right and left. The first puts on with speed and expedition; The other +curbs sin's stealing pace and theft. Nothing escapes them both; all must appear And +be disposed and dressed and tuned by thee Who sweetly temperest all. If we could +hear Thy skill and art, what music it would be!</q> On the whole doctrine, see Shedd, +Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:1-25. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>II. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. From Scripture.</head> + +<p> +A. The Scriptures declare that all things are included in the divine +decrees. B. They declare that special things and events are decreed; as, +for example, (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the stability of the physical universe; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the outward +circumstances of nations; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the length of human life; (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) the mode of +our death; (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) the free acts of men, both good acts and evil acts. C. +They declare that God has decreed (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) the salvation of believers; (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) the +establishment of Christ's kingdom; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) the work of Christ and of his +people in establishing it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +A. <emph>Is. 14:26, 27—<q>This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched +out upon all the nations; for Jehovah of hosts hath purposed ... and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?</q></emph> +<emph>46:10, 11—<q>declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, +My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure ... yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, +I will also do it.</q></emph> <emph>Dan. 4:35—<q>doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants +of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?</q></emph> <emph>Eph. 1:11—<q>the purpose of him who +worketh all things after the counsel of his will.</q></emph> +</p> + +<p> +B. (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>Ps. 119:89-91—<q>For ever, O Jehovah, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: +Thou hast established the earth and it abideth. They abide this day according to thine ordinances; For all things +are thy servants.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) <emph>Acts 17:26—<q>he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having +determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>Zach. 5:1—<q>came four chariots out from +between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass</q></emph>—the fixed decrees from which proceed +God's providential dealings? (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) <emph>Job 14:5—<q>Seeing his days are determined, The number of his +months is with thee, And thou hast determined his bounds that he cannot pass.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) <emph>John 21:19—<q>this he spake, +signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) Good acts: <emph>Is. 44:28—<q>that saith of Cyrus, +He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy +foundation shall be laid</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 2:10—<q>For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God +afore prepared that we should walk in them.</q></emph> Evil acts: <emph>Gen. 50:20—<q>as for you, ye meant evil against me; but +God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive</q></emph>; <emph>1 K. 12:15—<q>So the king +hearkened not unto the people, for it was a thing brought about of Jehovah</q></emph>; <emph>24—<q>for this thing is of me</q></emph>; <emph>Luke 22:23—<q>For +the Son of man indeed goeth, as it hath been determined: but woe unto that man through whom he is betrayed</q></emph>; +<emph>Acts 2:23—<q>him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless +men did crucify and slay</q></emph>; <emph>4:27, 28—<q>of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, who thou didst anoint, +both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy +hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass</q></emph>; <emph>Rom. 9:17—<q>For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very +purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power</q></emph>; <emph>1 Pet 2:3—<q>They stumble at the word, being disobedient: +whereunto also they were appointed</q></emph>; <emph>Rev. 17:17—<q>For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come +to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.</q></emph> +</p> + +<pb n='356'/><anchor id='Pg356'/> + +<p> +C. (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) <emph>1 Cor. 2:7—<q>the wisdom which hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our +glory</q></emph>; <emph>Eph 3:10, 11—<q>manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus +our lord.</q></emph> <emph>Ephesians 1</emph> is a pæan in praise of God's decrees. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The greatest decree of all +is the decree to give the world to Christ. <emph>Ps. 2:7, 8—<q>I will tell of the decree:... I will give thee +the nations for thine inheritance</q></emph>; <hi rend='italic'>cf.</hi> <emph>verse 6—<q>I have set my king Upon my holy hill of Zion</q></emph>; <emph>1 Cor. 15:25—<q>he +must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet.</q></emph> (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) This decree we are to convert into our +decree; God's will is to be executed through our wills. <emph>Phil. 2:12, 13—<q>work out your own +salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.</q></emph> <emph>Rev. +5:1, 7—<q rend='pre'>I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, close sealed +with seven seals.... And he</q></emph> [the Lamb] <emph><q rend='post'>came, and he taketh it out of the right hand of him that sat on the +throne</q></emph>; <emph>verse 9—<q>Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof</q></emph>—Christ alone has the +omniscience to know, and the omnipotence to execute, the divine decrees. When John +weeps because there is none in heaven or earth to loose the seals and to read the book +of God's decrees, the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevails to open it. Only Christ conducts +the course of history to its appointed end. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, +268-283, on The Decree of God as the Great Encouragement to Missions. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. From Reason.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>A. From the Divine Foreknowledge.</head> + +<p> +Foreknowledge implies fixity, and fixity implies decree.—From eternity +God foresaw all the events of the universe as fixed and certain. This fixity +and certainty could not have had its ground either in blind fate or in the +variable wills of men, since neither of these had an existence. It could +have had its ground in nothing outside the divine mind, for in eternity +nothing existed besides the divine mind. But for this fixity there must +have been a cause; if anything in the future was fixed, something must +have fixed it. This fixity could have had its ground only in the plan and +purpose of God. In fine, if God foresaw the future as certain, it must have +been because there was something in himself which made it certain; or, in +other words, because he had decreed it. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We object therefore to the statement of E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 74—<q>God's +knowledge and God's purposes both being eternal, one cannot be conceived as +the ground of the other, nor can either be predicated to the exclusion of the other as +the cause of things, but, correlative and eternal, they must be coequal quantities in +thought.</q> We reply that while decree does not chronologically precede, it does +logically precede, foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is not of possible events, but of what +is certain to be. The certainty of future events which God foreknew could have had +its ground only in his decree, since he alone existed to be the ground and explanation +of this certainty. Events were fixed only because God had fixed them. Shedd, Dogm. +Theol., 1:397—<q>An event must be <emph>made</emph> certain, before it can be <emph>known</emph> as a certain +event.</q> Turretin, Inst. Theol., loc. 3, quaes. 12, 18—<q>Præcipuum fundamentum scientiæ +divinæ circa futura contingentia est deoretum solum.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Decreeing creation implies decreeing the foreseen results of creation.—To +meet the objection that God might have foreseen the events of the universe, +not because he had decreed each one, but only because he had +decreed to create the universe and institute its laws, we may put the argument +in another form. In eternity there could have been no cause of the +future existence of the universe, outside of God himself, since no being +existed but God himself. In eternity God foresaw that the creation of the +world and the institution of its laws would make certain its actual history +even to the most insignificant details. But God decreed to create and to +institute these laws. In so decreeing he necessarily decreed all that was +to come. In fine, God foresaw the future events of the universe as certain, +because he had decreed to create; but this determination to create involved +also a determination of all the actual results of that creation; or, in other +words, God decreed those results. +</p> + +<pb n='357'/><anchor id='Pg357'/> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 84—<q>The existence of divine decrees may be +inferred from the existence of natural law.</q> Law = certainty = God's will. Positivists +express great contempt for the doctrine of the eternal purpose of God, yet they consign +us to the iron necessity of physical forces and natural laws. Dr. Robinson also +points out that decrees are <q>implied in the prophecies. We cannot conceive that all +events should have converged toward the one great event—the death of Christ—without +the intervention of an eternal purpose.</q> E. H. Johnson, Outline Syst. Theol., 2d +ed., 251, note—<q>Reason is confronted by the paradox that the divine decrees are at once +absolute and conditional; the resolution of the paradox is that God absolutely decreed +a conditional system—a system, however, the workings of which he thoroughly foreknows.</q> +The rough unhewn stone and the statue into which it will be transformed +are both and equally included in the plan of the sculptor. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +No undecreed event can be foreseen.—We grant that God decrees primarily +and directly his own acts of creation, providence, and grace; but +we claim that this involves also a secondary and indirect decreeing of the +acts of free creatures which he foresees will result therefrom. There is +therefore no such thing in God as <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>scientia media</foreign>, or knowledge of an +event that is to be, though it does not enter into the divine plan; for to say +that God foresees an undecreed event, is to say that he views as future an +event that is merely possible; or, in other words, that he views an event +not as it is. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We recognize only two kinds of knowledge: (1) Knowledge of undecreed possibles, +and (2) foreknowledge of decreed actuals. <foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>Scientia media</foreign> is a supposed intermediate +knowledge between these two, namely (3) foreknowledge of undecreed actuals. See +further explanations below. We deny the existence of this third sort of knowledge. +We hold that sin is decreed in the sense of being <emph>rendered certain</emph> by God's determining +upon a system in which it was foreseen that sin would exist. The sin of man can +be foreknown, while yet God is not the immediate cause of it. God knows possibilities, +without having decreed them at all. But God cannot foreknow actualities unless he +has by his decree made them to be certainties of the future. He cannot foreknow that +which is not there to be foreknown. Royce, World and Individual, 2:374, maintains +that God has, not <emph>fore</emph>knowledge, but only <emph>eternal</emph> knowledge, of temporal things. But +we reply that to foreknow how a moral being <emph>will</emph> act is no more impossible than to +know how a moral being in given circumstances <emph>would</emph> act. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +Only knowledge of that which is decreed is foreknowledge.—Knowledge +of a plan as ideal or possible may precede decree; but knowledge of a plan +as actual or fixed must follow decree. Only the latter knowledge is +properly <emph>fore</emph>knowledge. God therefore foresees creation, causes, laws, +events, consequences, because he has decreed creation, causes, laws, events, +consequences; that is, because he has embraced all these in his plan. The +denial of decrees logically involves the denial of God's foreknowledge of +free human actions; and to this Socinians, and some Arminians, are +actually led. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +An Arminian example of this denial is found in McCabe, Foreknowledge of God, and +Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see notes on God's +foreknowledge, in this Compendium, pages 283-286. Pepper: <q>Divine volition stands +logically between two divisions and kinds of divine knowledge.</q> God knew free +human actions as <emph>possible</emph>, <emph>before</emph> he decreed them; he knew them as <emph>future</emph>, <emph>because</emph> +he decreed them. Logically, though not chronologically, decree comes before foreknowledge. +When I say, <q>I know what I will do,</q> it is evident that I have determined +already, and that my knowledge does not precede determination, but follows it and is +based upon it. It is therefore not correct to say that God foreknows his decrees. It +is more true to say that he decrees his foreknowledge. He foreknows the future which +he has decreed, and he foreknows it because he has decreed it. His decrees are eternal, +and nothing that is eternal can be the object of foreknowledge. G. F. Wright, in Bib. +<pb n='358'/><anchor id='Pg358'/> +Sac., 1877:723—<q>The <emph>knowledge</emph> of God comprehended the details and incidents of +every possible plan. The <emph>choice</emph> of a plan made his knowledge determinate as <emph>fore</emph>knowledge.</q> +</p> + +<p> +There are therefore two kinds of divine knowledge: (1) knowledge of what may be—of +the possible (<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>scientia simplicis intelligentiæ</foreign>); and (2) knowledge of what is, and is +to be, because God has decreed it (<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>scientia visionis</foreign>). Between these two Molina, the +Spanish Jesuit, wrongly conceived that there was (3) a middle knowledge of things +which were to be, although God had not decreed them (<foreign lang='la' rend='italic'>scientia media</foreign>). This would of +course be a knowledge which God derived, not from himself, but from his creatures! +See Dick, Theology, 1:351. A. S. Carman: <q>It is difficult to see how God's knowledge +can be caused from eternity by something that has no existence until a definite point +of time.</q> If it be said that what is to be will be <q>in the nature of things,</q> we reply +that there is no <q>nature of things</q> apart from God, and that the ground of the objective +certainty, as well as of the subjective certitude corresponding to it, is to be found +only in God himself. +</p> + +<p> +But God's decreeing to create, when he foresees that certain free acts of men will +follow, is a decreeing of those free acts, in the only sense in which we use the word +decreeing, <hi rend='italic'>viz.</hi>, a rendering certain, or embracing in his plan. No Arminian who +believes in God's foreknowledge of free human acts has good reason for denying God's +decrees as thus explained. Surely God did not foreknow that Adam would exist and +sin, whether God determined to create him or not. Omniscience, then, becomes <emph>fore</emph>knowledge +only on condition of God's decree. That God's foreknowledge of free acts is +intuitive does not affect this conclusion. We grant that, while man can predict free +action only so far as it is rational (<hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, in the line of previously dominant motive), God +can predict free action whether it is rational or not. But even God cannot predict +what is not certain to be. God can have intuitive foreknowledge of free human acts +only upon condition of his own decree to create; and this decree to create, in foresight +of all that will follow, is a decree of what follows. For the Arminian view, see Watson, +Institutes, 2:375-398, 422-448. <hi rend='italic'>Per contra</hi>, see Hill, Divinity, 512-582; Fiske, in Bib. Sac., +April, 1862; Bennett Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 214-254; Edwards the younger, 1:398-420; +A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 98-101. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>B. From the Divine Wisdom.</head> + +<p> +It is the part of wisdom to proceed in every undertaking according to a +plan. The greater the undertaking, the more needful a plan. Wisdom, +moreover, shows itself in a careful provision for all possible circumstances +and emergencies that can arise in the execution of its plan. That many +such circumstances and emergencies are uncontemplated and unprovided +for in the plans of men, is due only to the limitations of human wisdom. +It belongs to infinite wisdom, therefore, not only to have a plan, but to +embrace all, even the minutest details, in the plan of the universe. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +No architect would attempt to build a Cologne cathedral without a plan; he would +rather, if possible, have a design for every stone. The great painter does not study +out his picture as he goes along; the plan is in his mind from the start; preparations +for the last effects have to be made from the beginning. So in God's work every detail +is foreseen and provided for; sin and Christ entered into the original plan of the universe. +Raymond, Syst. Theol., 2:156, says this implies that God cannot govern the +world unless all things be reduced to the condition of machinery; and that it cannot +be true, for the reason that God's government is a government of persons and not of +things. But we reply that the wise statesman governs persons and not things, yet just +in proportion to his wisdom he conducts his administration according to a preconceived +plan. God's power might, but God's wisdom would not, govern the universe +without embracing all things, even the least human action, in his plan. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>C. From the Divine Immutability.</head> + +<p> +What God does, he always purposed to do. Since with him there is no +increase of knowledge or power, such as characterizes finite beings, it follows +that what under any given circumstances he permits or does, he must +<pb n='359'/><anchor id='Pg359'/> +have eternally decreed to permit or do. To suppose that God has a multitude +of plans, and that he changes his plan with the exigencies of the situation, +is to make him infinitely dependent upon the varying wills of his +creatures, and to deny to him one necessary element of perfection, namely, +immutability. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God has been very unworthily compared to a chess-player, who will checkmate his +opponent whatever moves he may make (George Harris). So Napoleon is said to have +had a number of plans before each battle, and to have betaken himself from one to +another as fortune demanded. Not so with God. <emph>Job 23:13—<q>he is in one mind, and who can turn +him?</q></emph> <emph>James 1:17-<q>the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.</q></emph> +Contrast with this Scripture McCabe's statement in his Foreknowledge of God, 62—<q>This +new factor, the godlike liberty of the human will, is capable of thwarting, and +in uncounted instances does thwart, the divine will, and compel the great <hi rend='smallcaps'>I Am</hi> to +modify his actions, his purposes, and his plans, in the treatment of individuals and of +communities.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>D. From the Divine Benevolence.</head> + +<p> +The events of the universe, if not determined by the divine decrees, must +be determined either by chance or by the wills of creatures. It is contrary +to any proper conception of the divine benevolence to suppose that God +permits the course of nature and of history, and the ends to which both +these are moving, to be determined for myriads of sentient beings by any +other force or will than his own. Both reason and revelation, therefore, +compel us to accept the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, that <q>God +did from all eternity, by the most just and holy counsel of his own will, +freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.</q> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +It would not be benevolent for God to put out of his own power that which was so +essential to the happiness of the universe. Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 231-243—<q>The +denial of decrees involves denial of the essential attributes of God, such as omnipotence, +omniscience, benevolence; exhibits him as a disappointed and unhappy being; +implies denial of his universal providence; leads to a denial of the greater part of our +own duty of submission; weakens the obligations of gratitude.</q> We give thanks to +God for blessings which come to us through the free acts of others; but unless God +has purposed these blessings, we owe our thanks to these others and not to God. Dr. +A. J. Gordon said well that a universe without decrees would be as irrational and +appalling as would be an express-train driving on in the darkness without headlight or +engineer, and with no certainty that the next moment it might not plunge into the +abyss. And even Martineau, Study, 2:108, in spite of his denial of God's foreknowledge +of man's free acts, is compelled to say: <q>It cannot be left to mere created +natures to play unconditionally with the helm of even a single world and steer it +uncontrolled into the haven or on to the reefs; and some security must be taken for +keeping the deflections within tolerable bounds.</q> See also Emmons, Works, 4:273-401: +and Princeton Essays, 1:57-73. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>III. Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. That they are inconsistent with the free agency of man.</head> + +<p> +To this we reply that: +</p> + +<p> +A. The objection confounds the decrees with the execution of the +decrees. The decrees are, like foreknowledge, an act eternal to the divine +nature, and are no more inconsistent with free agency than foreknowledge +is. Even foreknowledge of events implies that those events are fixed. If +this absolute fixity and foreknowledge is not inconsistent with free agency, +much less can that which is more remote from man's action, namely, the +<pb n='360'/><anchor id='Pg360'/> +hidden cause of this fixity and foreknowledge—God's decrees—be inconsistent +with free agency. If anything be inconsistent with man's free +agency, it must be, not the decrees themselves, but the execution of the +decrees in creation and providence. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +On this objection, see Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 244-249; Forbes, Predestination and +Free Will, 3—<q>All things are <emph>predestinated</emph> by God, both good and evil, but not <emph>prenecessitated</emph>, +that is, causally preördained by him—unless we would make God the author +of sin. Predestination is thus an indifferent word, in so far as the originating author of +anything is concerned; God being the originator of good, but the creature, of evil. +Predestination therefore means that God included in his plan of the world every act of +every creature, good or bad. Some acts he predestined causally, others permissively. +The certainty of the fulfilment of all God's purposes ought to be distinguished from +their necessity.</q> This means simply that God's decree is not the <emph>cause</emph> of any act or +event. God's decrees may be executed by the causal efficiency of his creatures, or +they may be executed by his own efficiency. In either case it is, if anything, the execution, +and not the decree, that is inconsistent with human freedom. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +B. The objection rests upon a false theory of free agency—namely, that +free agency implies indeterminateness or uncertainty; in other words, that +free agency cannot coëxist with certainty as to the results of its exercise. +But it is necessity, not certainty, with which free agency is inconsistent. +Free agency is the power of self-determination in view of motives, or man's +power (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) to chose between motives, and (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) to direct his subsequent +activity according to the motive thus chosen. Motives are never a cause, +but only an occasion; they influence, but never compel; the man is the +cause, and herein is his freedom. But it is also true that man is never in a +state of indeterminateness; never acts without motive, or contrary to all +motives; there is always a reason why he acts, and herein is his rationality. +Now, so far as man acts according to previously dominant motive—see (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) +above—we may by knowing his motive predict his action, and our certainty +what that action will be in no way affects his freedom. We may even bring +motives to bear upon others, the influence of which we foresee, yet those +who act upon them may act in perfect freedom. But if man, influenced by +man, may still be free, then man, influenced by divinely foreseen motives, +may still be free, and the divine decrees, which simply render certain +man's actions, may also be perfectly consistent with man's freedom. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +We must not assume that decreed ends can be secured only by compulsion. Eternal +purposes do not necessitate efficient causation on the part of the purposer. Freedom +may be the very means of fulfilling the purpose. E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, +74—<q>Absolute certainty of events, which is all that omniscience determines respecting +them, is not identical with their necessitation.</q> John Milton, Christian Doctrine: +<q>Future events which God has foreseen will happen certainly, but not of necessity. +They will happen certainly, because the divine prescience will not be deceived; but +they will not happen necessarily, because prescience can have no influence on the +object foreknown, inasmuch as it is only an intransitive action.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +There is, however, a smaller class of human actions by which character +is changed, rather than expressed, and in which the man acts according to +a motive different from that which has previously been dominant—see (<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) +above. These actions also are foreknown by God, although they cannot +be predicted by man. Man's freedom in them would be inconsistent with +God's decrees, if the previous certainty of their occurrence were, not certainty, +but necessity; or, in other words, if God's decrees were in all cases +decrees efficiently to produce the acts of his creatures. But this is not the +<pb n='361'/><anchor id='Pg361'/> +case. God's decrees may be executed by man's free causation, as easily as +by God's; and God's decreeing this free causation, in decreeing to create a +universe of which he foresees that this causation will be a part, in no way +interferes with the freedom of such causation, but rather secures and establishes +it. Both consciousness and conscience witness that God's decrees +are not executed by laying compulsion upon the free wills of men. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The farmer who, after hearing a sermon on God's decrees, took the break-neck road +instead of the safe one to his home and broke his wagon in consequence, concluded +before the end of his journey that he at any rate had been predestinated to be a fool, and +that he had made his calling and election sure. Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, 146, 187, +shows that the will is free, first, by man's consciousness of ability, and, secondly, by +man's consciousness of imputability. By nature, he is <emph>potentially</emph> self-determining; as +matter of fact, he often <emph>becomes</emph> self-determining. +</p> + +<p> +Allen, Religious Progress, 110—<q>The coming church must embrace the sovereignty +of God and the freedom of the will; total depravity and the divinity of human nature; +the unity of God and the triune distinctions in the Godhead; gnosticism and agnosticism; +the humanity of Christ and his incarnate deity; the freedom of the Christian +man and the authority of the church; individualism and solidarity; reason and faith; +science and theology; miracle and uniformity of law; culture and piety; the authority +of the Bible as the word of God with absolute freedom of Biblical criticism; the +gift of administration as in the historic episcopate and the gift of prophecy as the +highest sanction of the ministerial commission; the apostolic succession but also the +direct and immediate call which knows only the succession of the Holy Ghost.</q> Without +assenting to these latter clauses we may commend the comprehensive spirit of this +utterance, especially with reference to the vexed question of the relation of divine +sovereignty to human freedom. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +It may aid us, in estimating the force of this objection, to note the four +senses in which the term <q>freedom</q> may be used. It may be used as +equivalent to (1) <emph>physical</emph> freedom, or absence of outward constraint; (2) +<emph>formal</emph> freedom, or a state of moral indeterminateness; (3) <emph>moral</emph> freedom, +or self-determinateness in view of motives; (4) <emph>real</emph> freedom, or ability +to conform to the divine standard. With the first of these we are not now +concerned, since all agree that the decrees lay no outward constraint upon +men. Freedom in the second sense has no existence, since all men have +character. Free agency, or freedom in the third sense, has just been shown +to be consistent with the decrees. Freedom in the fourth sense, or real +freedom, is the special gift of God, and is not to be confounded with free +agency. The objection mentioned above rests wholly upon the second of +these definitions of free agency. This we have shown to be false, and with +this the objection itself falls to the ground. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 133-188, gives a good definition of this +fourth kind of freedom: <q>Freedom is self-determination by universal ideals. Limiting +our ends to those of family or country is a refined or idealized selfishness. Freedom +is self-determination by universal love for man or by the kingdom of God. But +the free man must then be dependent on God in everything, because the kingdom of +God is a revelation of God.</q> John Caird, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, 1:133—<q>In +being determined by God we are self-determined; <hi rend='italic'>i. e.</hi>, determined by nothing +alien to us, but by our noblest, truest self. The universal life lives in us. The eternal +consciousness becomes our own; for <emph><q>he that abideth in love abideth in God and God abideth in him</q> +(1 John 4:16)</emph>.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 226—<q>Free will is not the independence of the +creature, but is rather his self-realization in perfect dependence. Freedom is self-identity +with goodness. Both goodness and freedom are, in their perfectness, in God. +Goodness in a creature is not distinction from, but correspondence with, the goodness +of God. Freedom in a creature is correspondence with God's own self-identity +with goodness. It is to realize and to find <emph>himself</emph>, his <emph>true</emph> self, in Christ, so that God's +<pb n='362'/><anchor id='Pg362'/> +love in us has become a divine response, adequate to, because truly mirroring, God.</q> +G. S. Lee, The Shadow Christ, 32—.<q>The ten commandments could not be chanted. +The Israelites sang about Jehovah and what he had done, but they did not sing about +what he told them to do, and that is why they never did it. The conception of duty +that cannot sing must weep until it learns to sing. This is Hebrew history.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>There is a liberty, unsung By poets and by senators unpraised, Which monarchs +cannot grant nor all the powers Of earth and hell confederate take away; A liberty +which persecution, fraud, Oppressions, prisons, have no power to bind; Which whoso +tastes can be enslaved no more. 'T is liberty of heart, derived from heaven, Bought +with his blood who gave it to mankind, And sealed with the same token.</q> Robert +Herrick: <q>Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent +and quiet take That for a hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul +am free, Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty.</q> +</p> + +<p> +A more full discussion of the doctrine of the Will is given under Anthropology, Vol. +II. It is sufficient here to say that the Arminian objections to the decrees arise almost +wholly from erroneously conceiving of freedom as the will's power to decide, in any +given case, against its own character and all the motives brought to bear upon it. As +we shall hereafter see, this is practically to deny that man has character, or that the +will by its right or wrong moral action gives to itself, as well as to the intellect and +affections, a permanent bent or predisposition to good or evil. It is to extend the +power of contrary choice, a power which belongs to the sphere of transient volition, +over all those permanent states of intellect, affection, and will which we call the moral +character, and to say that we can change directly by a single volition that which, as a +matter of fact, we can change only indirectly through process and means. Yet even +this exaggerated view of freedom would seem not to exclude God's decrees, or prevent +a practical reconciliation of the Arminian and Calvinistic views, so long as the +Arminian grants God's foreknowledge of free human acts, and the Calvinist grants +that God's decree of these acts is not necessarily a decree that God will efficiently +produce them. For a close approximation of the two views, see articles by Raymond +and by A. A. Hodge, respectively, on the Arminian and the Calvinistic Doctrines of +the Will, in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopædia, 10:989, 992. +</p> + +<p> +We therefore hold to the certainty of human action, and so part company with the +Arminian. We cannot with Whedon (On the Will), and Hazard (Man a Creative First +Cause), attribute to the will the freedom of indifference, or the power to act without +motive. We hold with Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 188, that action without motive, +or an act of pure will, is unknown in consciousness (see, however, an inconsistent +statement of Calderwood on page 188 of the same work). Every future human act +will not only be performed with a motive, but will certainly be one thing rather than +another; and God knows what it will be. Whatever may be the method of God's foreknowledge, +and whether it be derived from motives or be intuitive, that foreknowledge +presupposes God's decree to create, and so presupposes the making certain of the free +acts that follow creation. +</p> + +<p> +But this certainty is not necessity. In reconciling God's decrees with human freedom, +we must not go to the other extreme, and reduce human freedom to mere determinism, +or the power of the agent to act out his character in the circumstances which +environ him. Human action is not simply the expression of previously dominant +affections; else Neither Satan nor Adam could have fallen, nor could the Christian ever +sin. We therefore part company with Jonathan Edwards and his Treatise on the +Freedom of the Will, as well as with the younger Edwards (Works, 1:420), Alexander +(Moral Science, 107), and Charles Hodge (Syst. Theology, 2:278), all of whom follow +Jonathan Edwards in identifying sensibility with the will, in regarding affections as +the causes of volitions, and in speaking of the connection between motive and action +as a necessary one. We hold, on the contrary, that sensibility and will are two distinct +powers, that affections are occasions but never causes of volitions, and that, while +motives may infallibly persuade, they never compel the will. The power to make the +decision other than it is resides in the will, though it may never be exercised. With +Charnock, the Puritan (Attributes, 1:448-450), we say that <q>man hath a power to do +otherwise than that which God foreknows he will do.</q> Since, then, God's decrees are +not executed by laying compulsion upon human wills, they are not inconsistent with +man's freedom. See Martineau, Study, 2:237, 249, 258, 261; also article by A. H. Strong, +on Modified Calvinism, or Remainders of Freedom in Man, in Baptist Review, 1883:219-243; +reprinted in the author's Philosophy and Religion, 114-128. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='363'/><anchor id='Pg363'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. That they take away all motive for human exertion.</head> + +<p> +To this we reply that: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) They cannot thus influence men, since they are not addressed to +men, are not the rule of human action, and become known only after the +event. This objection is therefore the mere excuse of indolence and +disobedience. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Men rarely make this excuse in any enterprise in which their hopes and their interests +are enlisted. It is mainly in matters of religion that men use the divine decrees as +an apology for their sloth and inaction. The passengers on an ocean steamer do not +deny their ability to walk to starboard or to larboard, upon the plea that they are being +carried to their destination by forces beyond their control. Such a plea would be still +more irrational in a case where the passengers' inaction, as in case of fire, might +result in destruction to the ship. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The objection confounds the decrees of God with fate. But it is to +be observed that fate is unintelligent, while the decrees are framed by a +personal God in infinite wisdom; fate is indistinguishable from material +causation and leaves no room for human freedom, while the decrees exclude +all notion of physical necessity; fate embraces no moral ideas or ends, +while the decrees make these controlling in the universe. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +North British Rev., April, 1870—<q>Determinism and predestination spring from premises +which lie in quite separate regions of thought. The predestinarian is obliged by +his theology to admit the existence of a free will in God, and, as a matter of fact, he +does admit it in the devil. But the final consideration which puts a great gulf between +the determinist and the predestinarian is this, that the latter asserts the reality of the +vulgar notion of moral desert. Even if he were not obliged by his interpretation of +Scripture to assert this, he would be obliged to assert it in order to help out his doctrine +of eternal reprobation.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Hawthorne expressed his belief in human freedom when be said that destiny itself +had often been worsted in the attempt to get him out to dinner. Benjamin Franklin, +in his Autobiography, quotes the Indian's excuse for getting drunk: <q>The Great +Spirit made all things for some use, and whatsoever use they were made for, to that +use they must be put. The Great Spirit made rum for Indians to get drunk with, and +so it must be.</q> Martha, in Isabel Carnaby, excuses her breaking of dishes by saying: +<q>It seems as if it was to be. It is the thin edge of the wedge that in time will turn +again and rend you.</q> Seminary professor: <q>Did a man ever die before his time?</q> +Seminary student: <q>I never knew of such a case.</q> The decrees of God, considered +as God's all-embracing plan, leave room for human freedom. +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The objection ignores the logical relation between the decree of +the end and the decree of the means to secure it. The decrees of God not +only ensure the end to be obtained, but they ensure free human action +as logically prior thereto. All conflict between the decrees and human +exertion must therefore be apparent and not real. Since consciousness +and Scripture assure us that free agency exists, it must exist by divine +decree; and though we may be ignorant of the method in which the +decrees are executed, we have no right to doubt either the decrees or the +freedom. They must be held to be consistent, until one of them is proved +to be a delusion. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +The man who carries a vase of gold-fish does not prevent the fish from moving +unrestrainedly within the vase. The double track of a railway enables a formidable +approaching train to slip by without colliding with our own. Our globe takes us with +it, as it rushes around the sun, yet we do our ordinary work without interruption. +The two movements which at first sight seem inconsistent with each other are really +parts of one whole. God's plan and man's effort are equally in harmony. Myers, +Human Personality, 2:272, speaks of <q>molecular motion amid molar calm.</q> +</p> + +<pb n='364'/><anchor id='Pg364'/> + +<p> +Dr. Duryea: <q>The way of life has two fences. There is an Arminian fence to keep +us out of Fatalism; and there is a Calvinistic fence to keep us out of Pelagianism. +Some good brethren like to walk on the fences. But it is hard in that way to keep +one's balance. And it is needless, for there is plenty of room between the fences. For +my part I prefer to walk in the road.</q> Archibald Alexander's statement is yet better: +<q>Calvinism is the broadest of systems. It regards the divine sovereignty and the +freedom of the human will as the two sides of a roof which come together at a ridgepole +above the clouds. Calvinism accepts both truths. A system which denies either +one of the two has only half a roof over its head.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Spurgeon, Autobiography, 1:176, and The Best Bread, 109—<q>The system of truth +revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line but two, and no man will +ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once.... +These two facts [of divine sovereignty and of human freedom] are parallel lines; +I cannot make them unite, but you cannot make them cross each other.</q> John A. +Broadus: <q>You can see only two sides of a building at once; if you go around it, you +see two different sides, but the first two are hidden. This is true if you are on the +ground. But if you get up upon the roof or in a balloon, you can see that there are +four sides, and you can see them all together. So our finite minds can take in sovereignty +and freedom alternately, but not simultaneously. God from above can see +them both, and from heaven we too may be able to look down and see.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) Since the decrees connect means and ends together, and ends are +decreed only as the result of means, they encourage effort instead of discouraging +it. Belief in God's plan that success shall reward toil, incites +to courageous and persevering effort. Upon the very ground of God's +decree, the Scripture urges us to the diligent use of means. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +God has decreed the harvest only as the result of man's labor in sowing and reaping; +God decrees wealth to the man who works and saves; so answers are decreed to prayer, +and salvation to faith. Compare Paul's declaration of God's purpose (<emph>Acts 27:22, 24—<q>there +shall be no loss of life among you.... God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee</q></emph>) with his warning to +the centurion and sailors to use the means of safety (<emph>verse 31—<q>Except these abide in the ship, ye +cannot be saved</q></emph>). See also <emph>Phil. 2:12, 13—<q>work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who +worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure</q></emph>; <emph>Eph. 2:10—<q>we are his workmanship, created in +Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them</q></emph>; <emph>Deut. 29:29—<q>the secret things +belong unto Jehovah our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may +do all the words of this law.</q></emph> See Bennet Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 252-354. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Ps. 59:10 (A. V.)—<q>The God of my mercy shall prevent me</q></emph>—shall anticipate, or go before, me; <emph>Is. 65:24—<q>before +they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear</q></emph>; <emph>Ps. 23:2—<q>He leadeth me</q></emph>; <emph>John +10:3—<q>calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.</q></emph> These texts describe prevenient grace +in prayer, in conversion, and in Christian work. Plato called reason and sensibility +a mismatched pair, one of which was always getting ahead of the other. Decrees and +freedom <emph>seem</emph> to be mismatched, but they are not so. Even Jonathan Edwards, with +his deterministic theory of the will, could, in his sermon on Pressing into the Kingdom, +insist on the use of means, and could appeal to men as if they had the power +to choose between the motives of self and of God. God's sovereignty and human +freedom are like the positive and the negative poles of the magnet,—they are inseparable +from one another, and are both indispensable elements in the attraction of the +gospel. +</p> + +<p> +Peter Damiani, the great monk-cardinal, said that the sin he found it hardest to +uproot was his disposition to laughter. The homage paid to asceticism is the homage +paid to the conqueror. But not all conquests are worthy of homage. Better the words +of Luther: <q>If our God may make excellent large pike and good Rhenish wine, I may +very well venture to eat and drink. Thou mayest enjoy every pleasure in the world +that is not sinful; thy God forbids thee not, but rather wills it. And it is pleasing to +the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.</q> +But our freedom has its limits. Martha Baker Dunn: <q>A man fishing for pickerel +baits his hook with a live minnow and throws him into the water. The little minnow +seems to be swimming gaily at his own free will, but just the moment he attempts +to move out of his appointed course he begins to realize that there is a hook in his back. +That is what we find out when we try to swim against the stream of God's decrees.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<pb n='365'/><anchor id='Pg365'/> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>3. That they make God the author of sin.</head> + +<p> +To this we reply: +</p> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) They make God, not the author of sin, but the author of free beings +who are themselves the authors of sin. God does not decree efficiently to +work evil desires or choices in men. He decrees sin only in the sense of +decreeing to create and preserve those who will sin; in other words, he +decrees to create and preserve human wills which, in their own self-chosen +courses, will be and do evil. In all this, man attributes sin to himself and +not to God, and God hates, denounces, and punishes sin. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Joseph's brethren were none the less wicked for the fact that God meant their conduct +to result in good (<emph>Gen. 50:20</emph>). Pope Leo X and his indulgences brought on the +Reformation, but he was none the less guilty. Slaveholders would have been no more +excusable, even if they had been able to prove that the negro race was cursed in the +curse of Canaan (<emph>Gen. 9:25—<q>Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren</q></emph>). Fitch, +in Christian Spectator, 3:601—<q>There can be and is a purpose of God which is not +an <emph>efficient</emph> purpose. It embraces the voluntary acts of moral beings, without creating +those acts by divine efficiency.</q> See Martineau, Study, 2:107, 136. +</p> + +<p> +<emph>Mat. 26:24—<q>The Son of man goeth even as it is written of him: but woe unto that man through whom the Son of +man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had not been born.</q></emph> It was appointed that Christ should +suffer, but that did not make men less free agents, nor diminish the guilt of their +treachery and injustice. Robert G. Ingersoll asked: <q>Why did God create the devil?</q> +We reply that God did not create the devil,—it was the devil who made the devil. God +made a holy and free spirit who abused his liberty, himself created sin, and so made +himself a devil. +</p> + +<p> +Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:299—<q>Evil has been referred to 1. an extra-divine +principle—to one or many evil spirits, or to fate, or to matter—at all events to a +principle limiting the divine power; 2. a want or defect in the Deity himself, either his +imperfect wisdom or his imperfect goodness; 3. human culpability, either a universal +imperfection of human nature, or particular transgressions of the first men.</q> The +third of these explanations is the true one: the first is irrational; the second is blasphemous. +Yet this second is the explanation of Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyat, stanzas 80, +81—<q>Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the road I was to wander in, +Thou wilt not with predestined evil round Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin. +Oh Thou, who man of baser earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the snake: +For all the sin wherewith the face of man Is blackened—man's forgiveness give—and +take!</q> And David Harum similarly says: <q>If I've done anything to be sorry for, +I'm willing to be forgiven.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) The decree to permit sin is therefore not an efficient but a permissive +decree, or a decree to permit, in distinction from a decree to produce +by his own efficiency. No difficulty attaches to such a decree to permit sin, +which does not attach to the actual permission of it. But God does actually +permit sin, and it must be right for him to permit it. It must therefore +be right for him to decree to permit it. If God's holiness and wisdom and +power are not impugned by the actual existence of moral evil, they are not +impugned by the original decree that it should exist. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +Jonathan Edwards, Works, 2:100—<q>The sun is not the <emph>cause</emph> of the darkness that +follows its setting, but only the <emph>occasion</emph></q>; 254—<q>If by the author of sin be meant the +sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing—so it would be a +reproach and blasphemy to suppose God to be the author of sin.... But if by author +of sin is meant the permitter or non-hinderer of sin, and at the same time a disposer of +the state of events in such a manner, for wise, holy, and most excellent ends and purposes, +<emph>that sin</emph>, if it be permitted and not hindered, <emph>will most certainly follow</emph>, I do not +deny that God is the author of sin: it is no reproach to the Most High to be <emph>thus</emph> the +author of sin.</q> On the objection that the doctrine of decrees imputes to God two wills, +and that he has foreordained what he has forbidden, see Bennet Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, +250-252—<q>A ruler may forbid treason; but his command does not oblige him to +<pb n='366'/><anchor id='Pg366'/> +do all in his power to prevent disobedience to it. It may promote the good of his kingdom +to suffer the treason to be committed, and the traitor to be punished according to +law. That in view of this resulting good he chooses not to prevent the treason, does +not imply any contradiction or opposition of will in the monarch.</q> +</p> + +<p> +An ungodly editor excused his vicious journalism by saying that he was not ashamed +to describe anything which Providence had permitted to happen. But <q>permitted</q> +here had an implication of causation. He laid the blame of the evil upon Providence. +He was ashamed to describe many things that were good and which God actually +caused, while he was not ashamed to describe the immoral things which God did not +cause, but only permitted men to cause. In this sense we may assent to Jonathan +Edwards's words: <q>The divine Being is not the author of sin, but only disposes things +in such a manner that sin will certainly ensue.</q> These words are found in his treatise +on Original Sin. In his Essay on Freedom of the Will, he adds a doctrine of causation +which we must repudiate: <q>The essence of virtue and vice, as they exist in the disposition +of the heart, and are manifested in the acts of the will, lies not in their <emph>Cause</emph> +but in their <emph>Nature</emph>.</q> We reply that sin could not be condemnable in its nature, if God +and not man were its cause. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Browning, Mihrab Shah: <q>Wherefore should any evil hap to man—From +ache of flesh to agony of soul—Since God's All-mercy mates All-potency? Nay, why +permits he evil to himself—man's sin, accounted such? Suppose a world purged of all +pain, with fit inhabitant—Man pure of evil in thought, word and deed—were it not well? +Then, wherefore otherwise?</q> Fairbairn answers the question, as follows, in his Christ +in Modern Theology, 456—<q>Evil once intended may be vanquished by being allowed; +but were it hindered by an act of annihilation, then the victory would rest with the evil +which had compelled the Creator to retrace his steps. And, to carry the prevention +backward another stage, if the possibility of evil had hindered the creative action of +God, then he would have been, as it were, overcome by its very shadow. But why did +he create a being capable of sinning? Only so could he create a being capable of obeying. +The ability to do good implies the capability of doing evil. The engine can neither +obey nor disobey, and the creature who was without this double ability might be a +machine, but could be no child. Moral perfection can be attained, but cannot be created; +God can make a being capable of moral action, but not a being with all the fruits +of moral action garnered within him.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) The difficulty is therefore one which in substance clings to all theistic +systems alike—the question why moral evil is permitted under the +government of a God infinitely holy, wise, powerful, and good. This +problem is, to our finite powers, incapable of full solution, and must remain +to a great degree shrouded in mystery. With regard to it we can only say: +</p> + +<p> +Negatively,—that God does not permit moral evil because he is not unalterably +opposed to sin; nor because moral evil was unforeseen and independent +of his will; nor because he could not have prevented it in a moral +system. Both observation and experience, which testify to multiplied +instances of deliverance from sin without violation of the laws of man's +being, forbid as to limit the power of God. +</p> + +<p> +Positively,—we seem constrained to say that God permits moral evil +because moral evil, though in itself abhorrent to his nature, is yet the incident +of a system adapted to his purpose of self-revelation; and further, +because it is his wise and sovereign will to institute and maintain this system +of which moral evil is an incident, rather than to withhold his self-revelation +or to reveal himself through another system in which moral evil +should be continually prevented by the exercise of divine power. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +There are four questions which neither Scripture nor reason enables us completely +to solve and to which we may safely say that only the higher knowledge of the future +state will furnish the answers. These questions are, first, how can a holy God permit +moral evil? secondly, how could a being created pure ever fall? thirdly, how can we +be responsible for inborn depravity? fourthly, how could Christ justly suffer? The +<pb n='367'/><anchor id='Pg367'/> +first of these questions now confronts us. A complete theodicy (Θεός, God, and δική, +justice) would be a vindication of the justice of God in permitting the natural and +moral evil that exists under his government. While a complete theodicy is beyond +our powers, we throw some light upon God's permission of moral evil by considering +(1) that freedom of will is necessary to virtue; (2) that God suffers from sin more than +does the sinner; (3) that, with the permission of sin, God provided a redemption; and, +(4) that God will eventually overrule all evil for good. +</p> + +<p> +It is possible that the elect angels belong to a moral system in which sin is prevented +by constraining motives. We cannot deny that God could prevent sin in a moral system. +But it is very doubtful whether God could prevent sin in the <emph>best</emph> moral system. +The most perfect freedom is indispensable to the attainment of the highest virtue. +Spurgeon: <q>There could have been no moral government without permission to sin. +God could have created blameless puppets, but they could have had no virtue.</q> +Behrends: <q>If moral beings were incapable of perversion, man would have had all the +virtue of a planet,—that is, no virtue at all.</q> Sin was permitted, then, only because +it could be overruled for the greatest good. This greatest good, we may add, is not +simply the highest nobility and virtue of the creature, but also the revelation of the +Creator. But for sin, God's justice and God's mercy alike would have been unintelligible +to the universe. E. G. Robinson: <q>God could not have revealed his character so +well without moral evil as with moral evil.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Robert Browning, Christmas Eve, tells us that it was God's plan to make man in his +own image: <q>To create man, and then leave him Able, his own word saith, to grieve +him; But able to glorify him too, As a mere machine could never do, That prayed or +praised, all unaware Of its fitness for aught but praise or prayer, Made perfect as a +thing of course.</q> Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 268-270, 324, holds that sin and wickedness +is an absolute evil, but an evil permitted to exist because the effacement of it would +mean the effacement at the same time both for God and man, of the possibility of reaching +the highest spiritual good. See also Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:108; Momerie, +Origin of Evil; St. Clair, Evil Physical and Moral; Voysey, Mystery of Pain, Death +and Sin. +</p> + +<p> +C. G. Finney, Skeletons of a Course of Theological Studies, 26, 27—<q>Infinite goodness, +knowledge and power imply only that, if a universe were made, it would be +the best that was naturally possible.</q> To say that God could not be the author of a +universe in which there is so much of evil, he says, <q>assumes that a better universe, +upon the whole, was a natural possibility. It assumes that a universe of moral beings +could, under a moral government administered in the wisest and best manner, be +wholly restrained from sin; but this needs proof, and never can be proved.... The +best possible universe may not be the best conceivable universe. Apply the legal +maxim, <q>The defendant is to have the benefit of the doubt, and that in proportion to +the established character of his reputation.</q> There is so much clearly indicating the +benevolence of God, that we may <emph>believe</emph> in his benevolence, where we cannot <emph>see</emph> it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +For advocacy of the view that God cannot prevent evil in a moral system, see Birks, +Difficulties of Belief, 17; Young, The Mystery, or Evil not from God; Bledsoe, Theodicy; +N. W. Taylor, Moral Government, 1:288-349; 2:327-356. According to Dr. Taylor's view, +God has not a complete control over the moral universe; moral agents can do wrong +under every possible influence to prevent it; God prefers, all things considered, that all +his creatures should be holy and happy, and does all in his power to make them so; the +existence of sin is not on the whole for the best; sin exists because God cannot prevent +it in a moral system; the blessedness of God is actually impaired by the disobedience +of his creatures. For criticism of these views, see Tyler, Letters on the New Haven +Theology, 129, 219. Tyler argues that election and non-election imply power in God to +prevent sin; that <emph>permitting</emph> is not mere <emph>submitting</emph> to something which he could not +possibly prevent. We would add that as a matter of fact God has preserved holy +angels, and that there are <emph><q>just men</q></emph> who have been <emph><q>made perfect</q></emph> (<emph>Heb. 12:23</emph>) without +violating the laws of moral agency. We infer that God could have so preserved Adam. +The history of the church leads us to believe that there is no sinner so stubborn that +God cannot renew his heart,—even a Saul can be turned into a Paul. We hesitate +therefore to ascribe limits to God's power. While Dr. Taylor held that God could not +prevent sin in <emph>a</emph> moral system, that is, in <emph>any</emph> moral system, Dr. Park is understood to +hold the greatly preferable view that God cannot prevent sin in the <emph>best</emph> moral system. +Flint, Christ's Kingdom upon Earth, 59—<q>The alternative is, not evil or no evil, but +evil or the miraculous prevention of evil.</q> See Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:406-422. +</p> + +<pb n='368'/><anchor id='Pg368'/> + +<p> +But even granting that the present is the best moral system, and that in such a system +evil cannot be prevented consistently with God's wisdom and goodness, the question +still remains how the decree to initiate such a system can consist with God's fundamental +attribute of holiness. Of this insoluble mystery we must say as Dr. John +Brown, in Spare Hours, 273, says of Arthur H. Hallam's Theodicæa Novissima: <q>As +was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains where he found it. His glowing +love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom, but it is as brief as the +lightning in the collied night—the jaws of darkness do devour it up—this secret +belongs to God. Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick +cloud, <q>all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark,</q> no steady ray has ever or will ever come; +over its face its own darkness must brood, till he to whom alone the darkness and +the light are both alike, to whom the night shineth as the day, says <q>Let there be light!</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +We must remember, however, that the decree of redemption is as old as the decree of +the apostasy. The provision of salvation in Christ shows at how great a cost to God was +permitted the fall of the race in Adam. He who ordained sin ordained also an atonement +for sin and a way of escape from it. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:388—<q>The permission +of sin has cost God more than it has man. No sacrifice and suffering on account of +sin has been undergone by any man, equal to that which has been endured by an incarnate +God. This shows that God is not acting selfishly in permitting it.</q> On the permission +of moral evil, see Butler, Analogy, Bohn's ed., 177, 232—<q>The Government of +God, and Christianity, as Schemes imperfectly Comprehended</q>; Hill, System of Divinity, +528-559; Ulrici, art.: Theodicée, in Herzog's Encyclopädie; Cunningham, Historical +Theology, 2:416-489; Patton, on Retribution and the Divine Purpose, in Princeton Rev., +1878:16-23; Bib. Sac, 20:471-488; Wood, The Witness of Sin. +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>IV. Concluding Remarks.</head> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>1. Practical uses of the doctrine of decrees.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) It inspires humility by its representation of God's unsearchable +counsels and absolute sovereignty. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) It teaches confidence in him who +has wisely ordered our birth, our death, and our surroundings, even to the +minutest particulars, and has made all things work together for the triumph +of his kingdom and the good of those who love him; (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) It shows the +enemies of God that, as their sins have been foreseen and provided for in +God's plan, so they can never, while remaining in their sins, hope to escape +their decreed and threatened penalty. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) It urges the sinner to avail +himself of the appointed means of grace, if he would be counted among the +number of those for whom God has decreed salvation. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +This doctrine is one of those advanced teachings of Scripture which requires for its +understanding a matured mind and a deep experience. The beginner in the Christian +life may not see its value or even its truth, but with increasing years it will become a +staff to lean upon. In times of affliction, obloquy, and persecution, the church has +found in the decrees of God, and in the prophecies in which these decrees are published, +her strong consolation. It is only upon the basis of the decrees that we can believe +that <emph><q>all things work together for good</q> (Rom. 8:28)</emph> or pray <emph><q>Thy will be done</q> (Mat. 6:10)</emph>. +</p> + +<p> +It is a striking evidence of the truth of the doctrine that even Arminians pray and +sing like Calvinists. Charles Wesley, the Arminian, can write: <q>He wills that I should +holy be—What can withstand his will? The counsel of his grace in me He surely will +fulfill.</q> On the Arminian theory, prayer that God will soften hard hearts is out of +place,—the prayer should be offered to the sinner; for it is his will, not God's, that is +in the way of his salvation. And yet this doctrine of Decrees, which at first sight might +seem to discourage effort, is the greatest, in fact is the only effectual, incentive to effort. +For this reason Calvinists have been the most strenuous advocates of civil liberty. +Those who submit themselves most unreservedly to the sovereignty of God are most +delivered from the fear of man. Whitefield the Calvinist, and not Wesley the Arminian, +originated the great religious movement in which the Methodist church was born (see +McFetridge, Calvinism in History, 153), and Spurgeon's ministry has been as fruitful in +conversions as Finney's. See Froude, Essay on Calvinism; Andrew Fuller, Calvinism +and Socinianism compared in their Practical Effects; Atwater, Calvinism in Doctrine +and Life, in Princeton Review, 1876:73; J. A. Smith, Historical Lectures. +</p> + +<pb n='369'/><anchor id='Pg369'/> + +<p> +Calvinism logically requires the separation of Church and State: though Calvin did +not see this, the Calvinist Roger Williams did. Calvinism logically requires a republican +form of government: Calvin introduced laymen into the government of the church, +and the same principle requires civil liberty as its correlate. Calvinism holds to individualism +and the direct responsibility of the individual to God. In the Netherlands, +in Scotland, in England, in America, Calvinism has powerfully influenced the development +of civil liberty. Ranke: <q>John Calvin was virtually the founder of America.</q> +Motley: <q>To the Calvinists more than to any other class of men, the political liberties +of Holland, England and America are due.</q> John Fiske, The Beginnings of New England: +<q>Perhaps not one of the mediæval popes was more despotic than Calvin; but it +is not the less true that the promulgation of his theology was one of the longest steps +that mankind have taken towards personal freedom.... It was a religion fit to inspire +men who were to be called to fight for freedom, whether in the marshes of the Netherlands +or on the moors of Scotland.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Æsop, when asked what was the occupation of Zeus, replied: <q>To humble the exalted +and to exalt the humble.</q> <q>I accept the universe,</q> said Margaret Fuller. Some +one reported this remark to Thomas Carlyle. <q>Gad! she'd better!</q> he replied. Dr. John +Watson (Ian McLaren): <q>The greatest reinforcement religion could have in our +time would be a return to the ancient belief in the sovereignty of God.</q> Whittier: +<q>All is of God that is and is to be, And God is good. Let this suffice us still Resting in +childlike trust upon his will Who moves to his great ends unthwarted by the ill.</q> Every +true minister preaches Arminianism and prays Calvinism. This means simply that there +is more, in God's love and in God's purposes, than man can state or comprehend. +Beecher called Spurgeon a camel with one hump—Calvinism. Spurgeon called Beecher +a camel without any hump: <q>He does not know what he believes, and you never know +where to find him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Arminians sing: <q>Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on thee</q>; yet +John Wesley wrote to the Calvinist Toplady, the author of the hymn: <q>Your God is +my devil.</q> Calvinists replied that it was better to have the throne of the universe +vacant than to have it filled by such a pitiful nonentity as the Arminians worshiped. It +was said of Lord Byron that all his life he believed in Calvinism, and hated it. Oliver +Wendell Holmes similarly, in all his novels except Elsie Venner, makes the orthodox +thinblooded and weakkneed, while his heretics are all strong in body. Dale, Ephesians, +52—<q>Of the two extremes, the suppression of man which was the offense of Calvinism, +and the suppression of God which was the offense against which Calvinism so fiercely +protested, the fault and error of Calvinism was the nobler and grander.... The most +heroic forms of human courage, strength and righteousness have been found in men +who in their theology seemed to deny the possibility of human virtue and made the +will of God the only real force in the universe.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +<div> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>2. True method of preaching the doctrine.</head> + +<p> +(<hi rend='italic'>a</hi>) We should most carefully avoid exaggeration or unnecessarily obnoxious +statement. (<hi rend='italic'>b</hi>) We should emphasize the fact that the decrees are not +grounded in arbitrary will, but in infinite wisdom. (<hi rend='italic'>c</hi>) We should make +it plain that whatever God does or will do, he must from eternity have purposed +to do. (<hi rend='italic'>d</hi>) We should illustrate the doctrine so far as possible by +instances of completeness and far-sightedness in human plans of great +enterprises. (<hi rend='italic'>e</hi>) We may then make extended application of the truth to +the encouragement of the Christian and the admonition of the unbeliever. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> + +<p> +For illustrations of foresight, instance Louis Napoleon's planning the Suez Canal, +and declaring his policy as Emperor, long before he ascended the throne of France. +For instances of practical treatment of the theme in preaching, see Bushnell, Sermon on +Every Man's Life a Plan of God, in Sermons for the New Life; Nehemiah Adams, Evenings +with the Doctrines, 243; Spurgeon's Sermon on <emph>Ps. 44:3—<q>Because thou hadst a favor unto +them.</q></emph> Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra: <q>Grow old along with me! The best is yet +to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in his hand Who +saith <q>A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: See all nor be afraid!</q></q> +</p> + +<p> +Shakespeare, King Lear, 1:2—<q>This is the excellent foppery of the world that when +we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behavior) we make guilty of our +disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by +<pb n='370'/><anchor id='Pg370'/> +heavenly compulsion, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on; an admirable +evasion of man to lay his disposition to the charge of a star!</q> All's Well: +<q>Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives +us free scope; only doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are +dull.</q> Julius Cæsar, 1:2—<q>Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, +dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.</q> +</p> + +</quote> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +</div> + +</body> +<back rend="page-break-before: right"> + <div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <divGen type="pgfooter" /> + </div> +</back> +</text> +</TEI.2> diff --git a/44035-tei/images/cover.jpg b/44035-tei/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd43d71 --- /dev/null +++ b/44035-tei/images/cover.jpg |
